Andrew Motion

I've always thought that the balance between the side of my mind that knows what it is doing and the side that really hasn't got a clue has to be carefully maintained because if you write too knowingly then you get chilly, and if you write too unknowingly you write bollocks that nobody else can understand. ”

I shall try to write a poem that is about the moment but doesn't betray things that are true to me as a poet. ”

I want to write poems which are very emotional, but I would have some hesitation in saying I want to write poems which are sentimental. ”

There are plenty of examples of people who have had busy lives out there in the world, trying to do good, and written very well at the same time. ”

I'm an early bird, partly because I like to have some quiet time and partly because by 9am emails begin arriving, the phone starts ringing and I have dragons to kill of one sort or another. ”

I write between 5.30am and 9.00. That way, I hope I carry over something from my dream time. ”

Like a lot of people, for a long time I thought that the road to hell is paved with bad sequels. ”

I don't want my poems to be sentimental, though I do acknowledge that sentiment is probably rather under-reported in a lot of people's feelings a lot of the time. ”

I read 'Treasure Island' for the first time at university. And I started to notice then how unresolved some things were. Later, I realised that Stevenson was interested in sequels, and I wondered whether he would have gone back to it had he lived longer. ”

I wanted to reimagine the role, in a way that was respectful of its traditional responsibilities but made them part of a wider pattern of poetry about national incidents, events, preoccupations; and to spend a great deal of time going to schools trying to demystify poetry. ”