39 Quotes by Simon Armitage

It’s never going to be very mainstream. One reason is that poetry requires concentration, both on the part of the writer and the reader. But it’s kind of unkillable, poetry. It’s our most ancient artform and I think it’s more relevant today than ever, because it’s one person saying what they really believe.

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

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.

The ordinary can be absolutely miraculous.

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.

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”.

I wondered if people might not have had enough of Simon Armitage and wondered whether I hadn’t had enough of Simon Armitage.

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.

A woman plays the Northumberland pipes; from where I’m sitting, on a wall at the back, it looks like she’s giving physiotherapy to a small marsupial wearing callipers and smoking a bong, but the sound is haunting and hypnotic, mournful and melodic at the same time, every note somehow harmonising with the low, droning purr.