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Poem
We went out into the school yard together, me and the boy whose name and face I don’t remember. We were testing the range of the human voice: he had to shout for all he was worth I had…
Poem
Well it was St George’s Day in New York. They’d dyed the Hudson with cochineal and chalk. Bulldogs were arse-to-mouth in Central Park. Mid-town, balloons drifted up, red and white streamers flowed like plasma and milk. The Mayor on…
Poem
You’re Beautiful - Private: Simon Armitage
because you’re classically trained. I’m ugly because I associate piano wire with strangulation. You’re beautiful because you stop to read the cards in newsagents’ windows about lost cats and missing dogs. I’m ugly because of what I did to that…
Poem
A Bed and A Chair - Private: Simon Armitage
Unmade, mid-morning. A dress where it fell, where you snaked from it. The slab of the bed sheet, marbled with creases. These pillows washed up along the strand-line. Plunder. Salvage? The end of the world beyond its edge. …
Poem
The English Astronaut - Private: Simon Armitage
He splashed down in the rough seas of Spurn Point I watched through a coin-op telescope jammed with a lollipop stick as a trawler fished him out of the waves and ferried him back to Mission Control on a trading…
Poem
The Christening - Private: Simon Armitage
I am a sperm whale. I carry up to 2.5 tonnes of an oil-like balm in my huge, coffin-shaped head. I have a brain the size of a basketball, and on that basis alone am entitled to my opinions. I…
Poem
Came we then to the place abovementioned, crossed its bristled threshold through robotic glass doors, entered its furry heat, its flesh-toned fluorescent light. Thus with wire-wrought baskets we voyaged, and some with trolleys, back wheels flipping like trout tails, cruised…
Poem
Miniatures - Private: Simon Armitage
A washing line strung between our house and theirs, those neighbourly neighbours, settlers from a lost age and a childless planet. In this flashback scene I’m the kid sprawled on their front-room carpet staging shows and plays with the…
Poem
To Do List - Private: Simon Armitage
. Sharpen all pencils. . Check off-side rear tyre pressure. . Defrag hard-drive. . Consider life and times of Donald Campbell, CBE. . Shampoo billiard-room carpet. . Learn one new word per day. . Make circumnavigation of Coniston Water by…
Poem
Great Sporting Moments - Private: Simon Armitage
Keystone
Keystone
Poet
Matthew Hollis
B. 1971
Matthew Hollis (b. 1971) has published two collections of his own poetry, and has contributed to several other poetic careers as an editor at Faber and Faber. He has also co-edited 101 Poems against War and, with W N Herbert,…
Poet
Paul Batchelor
B. 1977
Paul Batchelor (b. 1977) has received several awards for his poetry including an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors, a Poetry Business Prize, and the Andrew Waterhouse Award. His first publication, To Photograph a Snow Crystal, was a…
Poet
Adam O’Riordan
B. 1982
In writing at once intense and wistful, Adam O’Riordan deploys precise imagery and memorable music to poignant effect. His poems, concerned with erasure and the revivifying limits of verse’s charms, span from imaginative encounters with the past – the fear…
Poet
Christopher Reid
B. 1949
Often associated with the short-lived Martian school of the 1980s, Christopher Reid’s poetry has come a long way since the extra-terrestrial metaphors and puzzling imagery that were the hallmark of his early writing. His gift for unusual, typically comic description…