It's Still Life

It’s Miz Quickly’s Reading Sunday prompt. I’m going with Armitage.

I am in love with Simon Armitage. I love his view of the world, his dark humour and dry wit. A bio is here. He’s the current Oxford Professor of Poetry (Poet Laureate). He’s a poet, artist, musician (member of The Scaremongers) … not exactly my kind of music but that’s hardly the point, is it. There’s a podcast of his Oxford lecture on poetry from May 2018 at May Podcast – Oxford University It’s an audio podcast, also available on iTunes Uni.

I really must make better use of podcasts on iTunes. There’s some amazing stuff out there, completely without charge.

Here’s an example of his poetry.

The Unthinkable BY SIMON ARMITAGE

A huge purple door washed up in the bay overnight,
its paintwork blistered and peeled from weeks at sea.
The town storyteller wasted no time in getting to work:
the beguiling, eldest girl of a proud, bankrupt farmer
had slammed that door in the face of a Freemason’s son,
who in turn had bulldozed both farm and family
over the cliff, except for the girl, who lived now
by the light and heat of a driftwood fire on a beach.

There was some plan to use the door as a jetty
or landing-stage, but it was all bullshit, the usual idle talk.
That’s when he left and never returned. Him I won’t name —
not known for his big ideas or carpentry skills,
a famous non-swimmer, but last seen sailing out,
riding the current and rounding the point in a small boat
with tell-tale flashes of almost certainly purple paint.

 
 
Resources: Armitage Winter Words in Moods and Metres