Simon Armitage
Simon Armitage
Simon Robert Armitage CBEis an English poet, playwright and novelist. On 19 June 2015, Armitage was elected Oxford Professor of Poetry, succeeding Geoffrey Hill...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth26 May 1963
closed home inviting local looking open reminds staying throwing
It reminds me to say that staying local should never be about looking at the world through a closed window, but about making a home then throwing the doors open and inviting the world in.
point
I'd got to a point where I wanted a break.
active appears covers four ingredient poetry rather slim thin three tried volumes
I'd never really been content with just churning out these slim volumes every three or four years. I've always tried to think of poetry as an active ingredient in the language rather than just something that appears between the covers of thin books.
guilty homer measure time
I even feel guilty if I'm reading a novel, because I think I should be reading Homer again. I don't really know what free time is, because I don't have something to measure it against.
song art two
As far as I can tell, there are two kinds of poets: those who want to tell stories and sing songs, and those who want to work out the chemical equation for language and pass on their experiments as poetry.
ordinary miraculous
The ordinary can be absolutely miraculous.
beautiful feet light
You’re beautiful because when you were born, undiscovered planets lined up to peep over the rim of your cradle and lay gifts of gravity and light at your miniature feet
hands weight razors
Where does the hand become the wrist? where does the neck become the shoulder? The watershed and then the weight, whatever turns up and tips us over that razor's edge between something and nothing, between one and the other.
writing space tasks
I have to make myself write, sometimes. In the space between poems, you somehow forget how to do it, where to begin. It was good to be task - based for a while. I just came downstairs each day, picked the one I was going to do that day, and wrote.
book years people
Somebody will be able to crack ebook files in the same way that people cracked music files a decade ago. An author could have worked for three years on his book, have someone buy it for their Kindle for £6.99 and then see it shared with everyone in the world for free.
moving found engaged
In all the poems I've written I've not really engaged in politics, and when I've found myself moving in that direction I've always stopped myself.
dad handwriting charity
Killing time in the precinct, I find a copy of one of my early volumes in a dump-bin on the pavement outside the charity shop. The price is 10p. It is a signed copy. Under the signature, in my own handwriting, are the words, "To mum and dad".
book smell people
People who read poetry, for example, like the feel, the heft and the smell of a book.
home hands hatred
This misfortune you find is of your own manufacture. Keep hold of what you have, it will harm no other, for hatred comes home to the hand that chose it.