Passing On

Andrew Motion

There was a lot in today’s newspapers about the British poet laureate, Andrew Motion, who was the first laureate to agree to a fixed term of ten years, rather than a lifetime appointment. His time is now up, and it will clearly be a great liberation for him. In the Guardian newspaper today they published a previously unpublished poem by Motion, Passing On, about the death of his father. It is a beautiful poem, the experience it describes immediately recognisable to all those who have had that sad experience. Please go and read it, here. The nation may be losing a laureate (with much speculation about who’ll be next) but clearly it will be regaining fully a poet at the height of his powers.