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Poet
Simon Armitage
B. 1963
In May 2019, Simon Armitage (b. 1963) was named as the UK’s Poet Laureate, an appointment greeted with delight by many in the poetry world and beyond. Armitage burst onto the poetry scene with Zoom! in 1989 and quickly established himself as the…
Guided Tour
Interview
Did you know there is more than one Simon Armitage? In this interview, the best-selling poet and novelist introduces you to them and talks about the importance of voice in his work.
Poem
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
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
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 - 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
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
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
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
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
Great Sporting Moments - Simon Armitage
Poem
. 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…
Keystone
Keystone
Poem
by Sheena Hussain
After Simon Armitage It’s Nakba again: comes in waves often without warning, always with warfare. 1.1 million leaflets scatter like rain move/migrate/displace (ethnic cleansing: never again). Women clutch pillows, floral bedding on mounted mules, carry a load of seven decades…
Collection
Poet
Jonathan Edwards
B. 1979
Jonathan Edwards was born in Newport, South Wales and grew up in Crosskeys. He received a BA in English and American Literature and an MA in Writing from the University of Warwick, and now teaches English at a secondary school…