Andrew Motion was introduced to poetry at school, and at Oxford studied under W.H. Auden. He had his first volume of poetry published at the age of 24. He taught at the University of Hull, where he met the poet Philip Larkin, whose biography he later wrote.

Motion was appointed Poet Laureate in 1999 for a term of ten years. As well as writing poems about royal occasions and national events, Motion championed poetry in schools and to a wider audience. He set up the Poetry Archive, a web-based resource of poets reading their own work. Motion was knighted for his services to literature in 2009 and is now Professor of Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, University of London.