Sir Andrew Motion was born in 1952 in London and raised in Essex. He studied poetry at Radley College and later took weekly lessons with W.H. Auden at Oxford. Motion published his first poetry collection in 1977 and went on to write several other collections that won awards like the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. He served as a lecturer at Hull University from 1977-1981 where he met poet Philip Larkin and later wrote Larkin's biography. Motion was also knighted in 1999 and served as the UK's Poet Laureate from 1999-2009. He currently lives in London.