Motion is currently Professor of Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, University of London, Chairman of the Arts Council of England's Literature Panel and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was appointed as Poet Laureate in May 1999 until May 2009 and was knighted by the Queen in 2009.

Motion’s fiction titles include THE INVENTION OF DR CAKE and FAMOUS FOR THE CREATURES. His non-fiction work includes WAYS OF LIFE and IN THE BLOOD, and his most recent poetry titles are THE CINDER PATH and PUBLIC PROPERTY. Motion is the recipient of the Arvon/Observer Prize, the John Llewelyn Rhys Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award, the Whitbread Prize for Biography, and the Dylan Thomas Prize.