He won the 2017 PEN America Award for Poetry in Translation and was awarded the 2018 Queens Gold Medal for Poetry. Literary Agent DGA (David Godwin Associates) 2nd floor, 40 Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell, London EC1R 4RX 0207 240 9992 To enquire: philippa@davidgodwinassociates.co.uk Media Enquiries He worked with young offenders before gaining a postgraduate qualification in social work at Manchester University in 1988. 845 - 677 - 8559 Armitage, Simon - Life ... Simon Armitage was born in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire in 1953. Eliot. 4.7 out of 5 stars 4. Simon Armitage’s life path number is 5 Life Path Number 5 represent 'The Free Spirit'. Further mainstream collections are: 2019 saw publication of Armitage’s new version of Hansel and Gretel illustrated by Clive Hicks-Jenkins (Design for Today) which originated as the puppet opera Hansel and Gretel (A Nightmare in Eight Scenes) and toured the UK in 2018. Black Roses was awarded BBC Radio Best Speech Programme of 2011 and short-listed for the Ted Hughes Award that year. Simon Armitage: his birthday, what he did before fame, his family life, fun trivia facts, popularity rankings, and more. http://www.blueflowerarts.com 7. mobile 619-944-9247 He was born in the Year of the Rabbit. [47][48], In May 2020 Armitage was the guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. The opera premiered at the 2006 Edinburgh International Festival, Scotland, before moving to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London. Wry as ever. [16] He is a vice president of the Poetry Society and a patron of the Arvon Foundation. Along the route he stopped to give poetry readings, often in exchange for donations of money, food or accommodation, despite the rejection of the free life seen in his 1993 poem "Hitcher", and has written a book about his journey, called Walking Home.[9]. Life and career Simon Armitage was born in Marsden, West Yorkshire. The poetry collection Still premiered at the Norfolk & Norwich Festival and has been published in partnership with Enitharmon Press. Simon Armitage was born in Marsden, a village in West Yorkshire, England. A few years ago, a new graveyard opened just up the road from the poet laureate’s … Simon Armitage’s birth sign is Gemini. PO Box 461, As part of Britain’s 2012 Cultural Olympiad and while Artist in Residence at London’s Southbank, Armitage conceived and curated Poetry Parnassus, a gathering of world poets and poetry from every Olympic nation. Morgan Green Creatives Ltd, To Book a Poetry Reading Kid and CloudCuckooLand were short-listed for the Whitbread poetry prize. mobile 619-944-9247 [38][39], Armitage read "The Bed" in Westminster Abbey on 11 November 2020 at the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the burial of The Unknown Warrior. Black Roses: The Killing of Sophie Lancaster was published by Pomona in 2012. Subsequently, Northumberland National Park’s Sill Arts Programme commissioned Armitage to write six new poems for the Poems in the Air project. In 2000, he was the UK's official Millennium Poet and went on to judge the 2005 Griffin Poetry Prize, the 2006 Man Booker Prize for Fiction and the 2010 Manchester Poetry Prize. Anya Backlund Simon Robert Armitage, CBE, FRSL (born 26 May 1963) is an English poet, playwright and novelist who was appointed Poet Laureate on 10 May 2019. Contact. [42], In November 2019 Armitage announced that he would donate his salary as poet laureate to create a new prize for a collection of poems "with nature and the environment at their heart". Clerkenwell, http://www.blueflowerarts.com London He is a graduate of Portsmouth University, where he studied Geography. Seeing Stars was short-listed for the TS Eliot Prize and was a Poetry Book Society Choice. The broadcast created unprecedented feedback and listener-response. In 2007 he released an album of songs co-written with the musician Craig Smith, under the band name The Scaremongers. In 1999 Armitage was named the Millennium Poet. Simon Armitage. CloudCuckooLand was short-listed for the Whitbread Poetry Prize. fax 845-677-6446 The prize is to be run by the Poetry School. I Am Thomas was a 2016 co-production with the National Theatre Scotland, Royal Lyceum Edinburgh, in association with Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse. He is Professor of Poetry at the University of Leeds and was elected to serve as Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford for 2015-2019. The Brink looked at the British relationship with Europe, as envisioned from the closest point of the mainland to the rest of the continent - Kent. Many of Armitage's poems appear in the AQA (Assessment and Qualifications Alliance) GCSE syllabus for English Literature in the United Kingdom. 2nd floor, 40 Rosebery Avenue, Blue Flower Arts, LLC From 2010 to 2012, Armitage worked with letter-carver Pip Hall and landscape designer Tom Lonsdale on the Stanza Stones project hosted by Ilkley Literature Festival. The Death of King Arthur, a further translation, was published by Faber and Norton in 2011. [49], In April 2020, in a short interview on the BBC 6 Music show Guy Garvey's Finest Hour, Armitage chose the track "Stanlow" by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, taken from their 1980 album Organisation. These sites now form the 45 mile Stanza Stones Trail. 0207 240 9992 Simon Armitage’s life path number is 5. Developed in collaboration with Professor Tony Ryan at the University of Sheffield, it used air-cleansing nanotechnology embedded in a 10m by 20m (33ft x 66ft) poster-poem which was attached to the side of a city-centre university building. … 5 turns the mystical into the norm. He comments: "The letter X will be interesting – does anywhere in the UK begin with X? Guests included Testament, Maxine Peake, Lily Cole, Antony Gormley, Sam Lee, Melanie Plimmer, Jackie Kay, Laura Ashe, and Chris Packham; the programme broadcast on 27 May was made while self-isolating during the COVID-19 pandemic. by Simon Armitage | 28 May 2009. The Great War: An Elegy (BBC 2, 2014), written and presented by Simon Armitage, followed seven WW1 stories and featured the new poems they inspired. Song Birds was screened at the Sun Dance Film Festival in 2006. 1 /1 Simon Armitage: My life in travel. The Dead Sea Poems was short-listed for the Whitbread, the Forward Poetry Prize and the T. S. Eliot Prize. Armitage wrote a sequence of six poems, In Memory of Water. Simon Armitage is a Vice President of the Poetry Society, a Patron of the Arvon Foundation, a Patron of the Friends of Yorkshire Sculpture Park, a Patron of the Wordsworth Trust, and Official Patron of the Elmet Trust. These include "Homecoming", "Extract from Out of the Blue", "November", "Kid", "Hitcher", "Remains", and a selection of poems from Book of Matches, most notably of these "Mother any distance...". Out Of The Blue was commissioned by Channel 5 to commemorate the fifth anniversary of 9/11 and was performed by Rufus Sewell. Simon Armitage has worked extensively in film, radio and television. In Spring 2019, he held the post of Holmes Visiting Professor at Princeton University, USA. He also contributes to Guy Garvey’s Finest Hour (BBC Radio 6 Music). EC1R 4RX Like many famous people and celebrities, Simon Armitage keeps his personal life private. In 2011 Armitage wrote the BBC Radio 4 docu-drama Black Roses: The Killing of Sophie Lancaster, about the murder of Sophie Lancaster and with the full co-operation of the Sophie Lancaster Foundation. Simon Armitage was born in 1963 in the village of Marsden and lives in West Yorkshire. A Brief Period of Rejoicing, a 30 minute film-poem commissioned by Channel 5 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of VE Day, was performed by Sheila Hancock. Literary Agent 4.3 out of 5 stars 47. In 2009 and 2010, Armitage presented films for BBC4 on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and on Arthurian literature. In 2019 Armitage became poet laureate of Great Britain. He published Zoom! The Shout, a book of new and selected poems was published in the USA in 2005 by Harcourt and shortlisted for the US National Book Critics’ Circle Award. Both The Last Days of Troy and The Odyssey played at Shakespeare’s Globe on London’s Southbank. In 2004, Armitage was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours. Remains – 2015 – By Simon Armitage (b. Previously, he taught at the University of Leeds, the University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop and Manchester Metropolitan University before his 2011 appointment as Professor of Poetry at the University of Sheffield and Visiting Professor at the University of Falmouth. In 2004 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Armitage first studied at Colne Valley High School, Linthwaite, Huddersfield and went on to study geography at Portsmouth Polytechnic. His work also appears on CCEA's GCSE English Literature course. He is also professor of poetry at the University of Leeds and succeeded Geoffrey Hill as Oxford Professor of Poetry when he was elected to the four year part time appointment from 2015–2019. Armitage has served as a judge for the Forward Prize, the TS Eliot Prize, the Whitbread Prize, the Griffin Prize, and the Man Booker Prize 2006. 3. Both The Universal Home Doctor and Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus the Corduroy Kid were short-listed for the T.S. [6] Armitage first studied at Colne Valley High School, Linthwaite, and went on to study geography at Portsmouth Polytechnic. He wrote and presented Xanadu (1992), a 'poem film for television', broadcast by BBC television as part of the 'Words on Film' series, and his film about the American poet Weldon Kees was broadcast by the BBC in 1993. Enquiries: hawkridgeagency@gmail.com, USA In 2019, he was elected Honorary Fellow at Trinity College, Oxford. [27][28][29][30], Armitage wrote "Ark" for the naming ceremony of the British Antarctic Survey's new ship RRS Sir David Attenborough on 26 September 2019. Anya Backlund Other anthologies include Short and Sweet: 101 Very Short Poems, and a selection of Ted Hughes’ poetry. From 2009 to 2012 he was Artist in Residence at London's South Bank, and in February 2011 he became Professor of Poetry at the University of Sheffield. Simon Armitage, in full Simon Robert Armitage, (born May 26, 1963, Huddersfield, Yorkshire [now in Kirklees], England), British poet, playwright, and novelist whose poetry is attuned to modern life and vernacular language and has been regarded as both accessible and revelatory. Personal Life. The Manhunt Lyrics. It received Gold at the 2005 Spoken Word Awards. The mystery seventh stone, sited in an unnamed location, has yet to be found. Jack Watkins spoke to the Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage, about writing, the environment and refusing to write about Brexit. With the help of local expert Tom Lonsdale and letter-carver Pip Hall, the poems were carved into stones at secluded sites. Graham Short, a micro-engraver, meticulously carved the entire 51-word poem clearly onto a facsimile of a cancer treatment tablet. Publications of this type include The Anaesthetist (Prospero Poets, 1994), The Not Dead (Pomona Press, 2008), Out of the Blue (Enitharmon, 2008) and the pamphlet The Motorway Service Station as Destination in its Own Right (Smith/Doorstep Books, 2009). So what’s it to be then, a Morrissey song or an Armitage poem? Until 1994 he worked as a Probation Officer in Greater Manchester. was a Poetry Book Society Choice. [54], He is a supporter of his local football team, Huddersfield Town, to whom he makes many references in his book All Points North (1996). Simon Armitage: My life in travel 'The light in St Ives is absolutely beautiful' Comments Share your thoughts and debate the big issues. Armitage edited with Robert Crawford The Penguin Anthology of Poetry from Britain and Ireland Since 1945 (Penguin, 1998) and edited with Tim Dee The Poetry of Birds (Viking 2009). Tiger King and a bloody mary: Hilary Mantel, Simon Armitage and other writers on lockdown life. They have a daughter, Emmeline, born in 2000. Simon Robert Armitage, CBE, FRSL (born 26 May 1963)[1] is an English poet, playwright and novelist who was appointed Poet Laureate on 10 May 2019. "[45][46], In March 2020 Armitage launched a podcast, The Poet Laureate Has Gone To His Shed, also broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Eliot Prize), both of which were published in July 2006. The Twilight Readings (2007) is an illustrated publication of Armitage’s first residency at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP). Paperback On Simon Armitage’s website, you can find the nine poems he’s written in his first year as Britain’s poet laureate. Armitage’s translation of the medieval poem Pearl was published in 2016 and won the 2017 PEN America Award for Poetry in Translation. Prior to mainstream publication, Armitage published several limited edition pamphlets with small and local poetry presses, all now highly collectable. Armitage has served as a judge for the Forward Prize, the TS Eliot Prize, the Whitbread Prize, the Griffin Prize, and the Man Booker Prize 2006. The poems, complemented with commissioned wood engravings by Hilary Paynter, were also published in several limited editions under the title 'In Memory of Water' by Fine Press Poetry. He is married to Sue Roberts. Produced by Simon Armitage. The poetic script of Black Roses was published in full by Pomona in 2012. PO Box 461, Simon Armitage, Poet Laureate, chooses the eight tracks, book … Clive-Hicks Jenkins’ work went on to win the V&A Illustration Award 2020 for Book Illustration. 1963) This is the story of a soldier in an unnamed conflict. He earned a BA from Portsmouth University in geography, and an MS in social work from Manchester University, where he studied the impact of televised violence on young offenders. Armitage wrote the libretto for the opera The Assassin Tree, composed by Stuart McRae, which premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2006. Simon Armitage Simon Armitage's brilliant, hilarious, deadpan memoir of a lifetime's worth of gigs From punk to mod to New Romantic, and eventually to acclaimed poet, Simon Armitage writes about a life where music and poetry have been core. I’m on the street, under the stars. He is the author of five stage plays, including Mister Heracles, a version of Euripides' The Madness of Heracles. fax 845-677-6446 [6] He has an older sister, Hilary. Finding himself jobless after graduation, he decided to train as a probation officer, like his father before him. They released their debut album 'Call in the Crash Team' in 2020. I also want to find a way of including alphabet letters from other languages spoken in these islands such as Welsh, Urdu or Chinese, and to involve communities where English might not be the first language. [21], In 2019 Armitage's first poem as Poet Laureate, "Conquistadors", commemorating the 1969 moon landing, was published in The Guardian. The book version, Homer’s Odyssey – A Retelling, is published by Faber and Faber (2006) in the UK and by Norton in the US. [6] During what his wife Sue described as "a bit of a mid-life crisis", Armitage and his college friend Craig Smith founded the band The Scaremongers. Armitage's poetry collections include Book of Matches (1993) and The Dead Sea Poems (1995). Armitage’s earlier dramatisation of The Odyssey, commissioned by the BBC, was broadcast on Radio 4 in 2004 and released on CD through BBC Worldwide. Armitage is the first poet laureate who is also a DJ. He was appointed UK Poet Laureate in 2019 Armitage's poetry collections include Book of Matches (1993) and The Dead Sea Poems (1995). Published in 2007, it has sold over 100,000 copies worldwide to date and appears in its entirety in the Norton Anthology of English Literature. Armitage’s 2012 non fiction book Walking Home, an account of his troubadour journey along the Pennine Way, became a Sunday Times Top Ten best-seller for over a month and was shortlisted for the 2012 Portico Prize. [8], His first poetry collection was called Human Geography (1988). It was repeated soon after its original transmission and became the most re-requested of any programme on BBC Radio 4 in 2010. Armitage has written two novels: Little Green Man (Viking, 2001) and The White Stuff (Viking, 2004). DGA (David Godwin Associates) [57] Armitage is the lead singer of LYR, a band he is in alongside Richard Walters and Patrick J Pearson. He was a post-graduate student at Manchester University where his MA thesis concerned the effects of television violence on young offenders. [52] Emmeline won the 2017 SLAMbassadors national youth poetry slam for 13-18-year-olds. MA 01061 Simon was born in Baby Boomers Generation (1963). The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, http://www.skyartsart50.tv/projects/thebrink/, National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, "Biography » Simon Armitage - The Official Website", "Simon Armitage: 'Witty and profound' writer to be next Poet Laureate", "Simon Armitage wins Oxford professor of poetry election", "Simon Armitage — British Council Literature", "Results for England & Wales Births 1837-2006", "The Thespian gene runs strongly in the Armitage family", "Simon Armitage named UK's poet laureate", "Pennine Way activities on Armitage's website", "Simon Armitage comes full circle with Professor of Poetry post", "Simon Armitage appointed new UK Poet Laureate", "BBC Four — Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", "The Last Days of Troy by Simon Armitage starring Lily Cole / Shakespeare's Globe", "Moon landing poem launches Simon Armitage as poet laureate", "Simon Armitage pens poem on cancer pill". 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