Allow Quote by Andrew Motion

To be poet laureate is to try to spread the love and the accessibility of poetry to young people.

— Jacqueline Woodson

It's the combination of the intimate and the public that I find so exciting about being poet laureate.

— Rita Dove

There are distinct duties of a poet laureate. I plan a reading series at the Library of Congress and advise the librarian. The rest…

— Rita Dove

It is a tremendous honor to be named poet laureate, but one that I find humbling as well, because it's the kind of thing…

— Natasha Trethewey

What's really funny about being National Youth Poet Laureate is that not everyone even knows it exists.

— Amanda Gorman

People write me from all over the country, asking me, and sometimes even telling me, what they think a poet laureate should do. I…

— Rita Dove

I'm not the kind of poet who arranges treasure-hunts to please the academics and keep them busy. Poetry should be surprising in deeper ways.

— Michael Longley

Nowadays, what an award gives is a sense of solidarity with the poetry guild, as it were: sustenance coming from the assent of your…

— Seamus Heaney

It is funny, and also a bit sad, that poets are so often asked to justify our vocation. There seems to be something vaguely…

— Matthew Zapruder

I've written on public matters, but I don't understand how anyone could tout me as a possible poet laureate when I wrote a poem…

— Tony Harrison

And when you are entering into poetry, whatever stage you're at, you are participating in something with a very long and noble tradition.

— Edward Hirsch

Because I'm a younger laureate, it seemed important to me to do something - not to just accept the honor of the position, but…

— Natasha Trethewey