Simon Robert Armitage (born 26 May 1963)[1] is an English poet, playwright, musician and novelist. He was appointedPoet Laureate on 10 May 2019. He is professor of poetry at theUniversity of Leeds.
He has lectured on creative writing at theUniversity of Leeds and at theUniversity of Iowa, and in 2008 was a senior lecturer atManchester Metropolitan University.[7] He has made literary, history and travel programmes forBBC Radio 3 and4; and since 1992 he has written and presented a number of TV documentaries. From 2009 to 2012 he was Artist in Residence at London's South Bank, and in February 2011 he became Professor of Poetry at theUniversity of Sheffield.[8][9] He was elected to serve as Professor of Poetry at theUniversity of Oxford for 2015–2019.[10] In October 2017 he was appointed as the first Professor of Poetry at theUniversity of Leeds.[11] In 2019 he was appointedPoet Laureate for ten years, followingCarol Ann Duffy.[12] He is a trustee of theNational Poetry Centre, a charity established in 2022 which plans to open "a new national home for poetry" in Leeds in 2027.[13][14] In 2025 he received theFreedom of the City of London, for "his outstanding achievements in the written word and his enthusiastic promotion of poetry, in particular, to the younger generation".[15]
Armitage's first book-length poetry collectionZoom! was published in 1989.[6] As well as some new poems, it contained works published in three pamphlets in 1986 and 1987.[16]His poetry collections includeBook of Matches (1993) andThe Dead Sea Poems (1995). He has written two novels,Little Green Man (2001) andThe White Stuff (2004), as well asAll Points North (1998), a collection of essays onNorthern England. He produced a dramatised version ofHomer'sOdyssey and a collection of poetry entitledTyrannosaurus Rex Versus The Corduroy Kid (shortlisted for theT. S. Eliot Prize), both published in 2006. Armitage's poems feature in multiple BritishGCSE syllabuses for English Literature.[17] He is characterised by a dry Yorkshire wit combined with "an accessible, realist style and critical seriousness."[9] His translation ofSir Gawain and the Green Knight (2007) was adopted for the ninth edition ofThe Norton Anthology of English Literature, and he was the narrator of a 2010 BBC documentary about the poem and its use of landscape.[18]
For theStanza Stones Trail, which runs through 47 miles (76 km) of the Pennine region, Armitage composed six new poems on his walks. With the help of local expert Tom Lonsdale and letter-carver Pip Hall, the poems were carved into stones at secluded sites. A book, containing the poems and the accounts of Lonsdale and Hall, has been produced as a record of that journey[19] and has been published byEnitharmon Press. 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.[20] ForNational Poetry Day in 2020,BT commissioned him to write "Something clicked", a reflection on lockdown during theCOVID-19 pandemic.[21] In 2023The National Trust commissioned a poem by Armitage forBrimham Rocks in North Yorkshire. ArtistAdrian Riley collaborated with Armitage and stone carver Richard Dawson to create 'Balancing Act' – a gateway-like public artwork carrying Armitage's poem where the rocks meet moorland.[22][23]
In 2019 Armitage's first poem asPoet Laureate, "Conquistadors", commemorating the1969 Moon landing, was published inThe Guardian.[24][25]Armitage's second poem as Poet Laureate, "Finishing it", was commissioned in 2019 by theInstitute of Cancer Research.Graham Short, a micro-engraver, meticulously carved the entire 51-word poem clearly onto a facsimile of a cancer treatment tablet.[26][27] Armitage wrote "All Right" as part ofNorthern train operator's suicide prevention campaign for Mental Health Awareness Week. Their video has a soundtrack of the poem being read byMark Addy, while the words also appear on screen.[28] On 21 September 2019 he read his poem "Fugitives", commissioned by the Association ofAreas of Natural Beauty, onArnside Knott, Cumbria, in celebration of the 70th anniversary of theNational Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, during an event which included the formation of a heart outlined by people on the hillside.[29][30][31][32] Armitage wrote "Ark" for the naming ceremony of theBritish Antarctic Survey's new shipRRSSir David Attenborough on 26 September 2019.[33][34][35][36] "the event horizon" was written in 2019 to commemorate the opening of The Oglesby Centre, an extension toHallé St Peter's, the Halle orchestra's venue for rehearsals, recordings, education and small performances. The poem is incorporated into the building "in the form of a letter-cut steel plate situated in the entrance to the auditorium, the 'event horizon'".[37] "Ode to a Clothes Peg" celebrates the bicentenary ofJohn Keats'six 1819 odes of which Armitage says, "Among his greatest works, the poems are also some of the most famous in the English Language."[38]
On 12 January 2020, Armitage gave the first reading of his poem "Astronomy for Beginners", written to celebrate the bicentenary of theRoyal Astronomical Society, onBBC Radio 4'sBroadcasting House.[39][40] "Lockdown", first published inThe Guardian on 21 March 2020, is a response to thecoronavirus pandemic, referencing the Derbyshire "plague village" ofEyam, which self-isolated in 1665 to limit the spread of theGreat Plague of London, and the Sanskrit poem "Meghadūta" byKālidāsa, in which a cloud carries a message from an exile to his distant wife.[41][42] Armitage read his "Still Life", another poem about the lockdown, onBBC Radio 4'sToday programme on 20 April 2020.[43][44] An installation of his "The Omnipresent" was part of an outdoor exhibitionEveryday Heroes at London'sSouthbank Centre in autumn 2020.[45][46]Huddersfield Choral Society commissioned Armitage to provide lyrics for works byCheryl Frances-Hoad andDaniel Kidane, resulting in "The Song Thrush and the Mountain Ash" and "We'll Sing", which were released on video in autumn 2020. Armitage asked members of the choir to send him one word each to represent their experience of lockdown, and worked with these to produce the two lyrics.[47][48][49][50] Armitage read "The Bed" inWestminster Abbey on 11 November 2020 at the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the burial ofThe Unknown Warrior.[51][52]
" 'I speak as someone ...' " was first published inThe Times on 20 February 2021 and commemorates the 200th anniversary of the death of the poetJohn Keats, who died in Rome on 23 February 1821.[53][54][55] To mark a stage in the easing oflockdown, Armitage wrote "Cocoon" which he read on BBC Radio 4'sToday on 29 March 2021.[56][57] "The Patriarchs – An Elegy" marks the death ofPrince Philip and was released on the day of his funeral, 17 April 2021. It refers to the snow on the day of his death, and Armitage has said "I've written about a dozen laureate poems since I was appointed, but this is the first royal occasion and it feels like a big one".[58][59][60] Armitage wrote "70 notices" in 2021 as a commission for theOff the Shelf Festival to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the creation of thePeak DistrictNational Park.[61][62] "Futurama" was Armitage's response to the 2021Cop26 conference held in Glasgow, and he said of it "I was trying to chart the peculiar dream-like state we seem to be in, where the rules and natural laws of the old world feel to be in flux".[63][64] In November 2019 Armitage announced that he would donate his salary as poet laureate to create thePoetry School's Laurel Prize for a collection of poems "with nature and the environment at their heart". The prize is to be run by the Poetry School.[65]
Armitage wrote "Resistance", about the2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, published inThe Guardian on 12 March 2022.[66][67] He described it as "a refracted version of what is coming at us in obscene images through the news".[68] Armitage read his "Only Human" atYork Minster on 23 March 2022 during a service on the second annualNational Day of Reflection to remember lives lost during theCOVID-19 pandemic; the poem will be inscribed in a garden of remembrance at the Minster.[69][70] For thePlatinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II in June 2022, Armitage wrote "Queenhood".[71] It was published inThe Times on 3 June[72] and as a signed limited-edition pamphlet sold through commercial outlets (ISBN9780571379606), and on the royal.uk website.[73] He published "Floral Tribute" on 13 September 2022, to commemorate thedeath of Elizabeth II; it takes the form of a doubleacrostic in which the initial letters of the lines of each of its two stanzas spell out "Elizabeth".[74][75] Later that day he explained and read the poem onBBC News at Ten.[76] To celebrate the centenary of theBBC, Armitage wrote "Transmission Report", which was broadcast onThe One Show on 24 October 2022, read by a cast of BBC celebrities includingBrian Cox,Michael Palin,Mary Berry andChris Packham, accompanied by theBBC Concert Orchestra.[77][78][79] Armitage wrote "The Making of the Flying Scotsman (a phantasmagoria)" to mark the centenary of the locomotiveFlying Scotsman, which entered service on 24 February 1923.[80][81] OnWorld Poetry Day, 21 March 2023, he released his "Plum Tree Among the Skyscrapers", the first of a series of 10 works to be commissioned by theNational Trust and created by Armitage and his band LYR.[82][83] For thecoronation of Charles III and Camilla on 6 May 2023, Armitage wrote "An Unexpected Guest", telling the tale of a woman invited to attend the coronation inWestminster Abbey, and quoting fromSamuel Pepys' diary entry recording the coronation ofCharles II in 1661.[84][85][86]
In July 2023, Armitage spent time onSpitsbergen at theBritish Antarctic Survey'sNy-Ålesund research station, and wrote a group of poems relating to his visit.[87] "The Summit" was published inThe Guardian in October 2023, ahead of a series of fourBBC Radio 4 programmes calledPoet Laureate in the Arctic, broadcast from 10 October 2023.[88][89] "Polaris" was the lyric used forBBC Radio 3's 2023 Carol Competition: Armitage said "I was hoping to write something that might appeal to people of different backgrounds and different ages, with a narrative and maybe a slight nursery rhyme or nonsense feel to it, but with a serious and timely message at its heart. I don't think there are any other carols that begin with the words "The police…!"".[90][91] "Megalosaurus" celebrates the 200th anniversary of the naming of themegalosaurus and was commissioned by theOxford University Museum of Natural History.[92][93] "Hinge" forms part of a collaboration with sculptorAnthony Gormley, commissioned byTrinity College, Oxford: the poem is displayed in relief on a rusting metal door which leads into the college grounds fromParks Road and unveiled in March 2025.[94][95]His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service commissioned "A Life In The Day Of" as part of a March 2025 campaign aiming to recruitprobation officers with life experience, the way Armitage's father had joined the service; Armitage drew on his own memories of work as a probation officer.[96][97][98]Portsmouth City Council commissioned "The Theatre of the Sea" which is cast in brass letters and embedded in the sea defence wall atSouthsea, unveiled in April 2025; Armitage commented that it was "a great honour and a wonderful kind of reunion" to write a poem for the city where he studied for his geography degree.[99][100] "The Definition of a Town" was commissioned byKirklees Council and will be inlaid in the pavement of a New Street inHuddersfield.[101][102] "In Retrospect" was commissioned byHistoric Royal Palaces to mark the 80th anniversary, in May 2025, ofVE Day.[103][104] TheStockton and Darlington Railway opened on 27 September 1825, and Armitage's "The Longest Train in the World" celebrates the history of railways, commissioned as part of "Railway 200".[105][106]
In November 2019 Armitage announced that each spring for ten years he would spend a week touring five to seven libraries giving a one-hour poetry reading and perhaps introducing a guest poet. The libraries were to be selected in alphabetical order: in March 2020 he was to visit places or libraries with names starting with "A" or "B" (including theBritish Library[107]), and so on until "W", "X", "Y" and "Z" in 2029. He comments: "The letter X will be interesting – does anywhere in the UK begin with X? 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."[108][109]
The 2025 tour visited libraries with initials L and M, from 3 to 11 March. It began at Library@theGrange, a small library in Blackpool'sGrange Park estate, where Armitage appeared with spoken word artist and punk poet Toria Garbutt[121] AtLetchworth Library he was joined byCia Mangat,[122] and atMorriston Hospital library inSwansea, Wales, he appeared with Welsh poet and activistMenna Elfyn. He visitedLiskeard Library in Cornwall, alongsidePascale Petit, helping to celebrate the library's refurbishment of thislisted building.[123] Armitage then returned to his home village to give two solo readings atMarsden Library, housed in the formerMechanics' Institute building. For the final event of the tour Armitage visited theLinen Hall Library, the oldest library inBelfast, Northern Ireland, appearing withLeontia Flynn.[124]
In 2026, Armitage plans to visits libraries in locations beginning with "N", "O" and "P", from 2 to 7 March.[125]
Armitage is the author of five stage plays, includingMister Heracles, a version ofEuripides'The Madness of Heracles.The Last Days of Troy premiered atShakespeare's Globe in June 2014.[126] He was commissioned in 1996 by theNational Theatre in London to writeEclipse for the National Connections series, a play inspired by the real-lifedisappearance of Lindsay Rimer fromHebden Bridge in 1994, and set at the time of the 1999 solar eclipse inCornwall.[127]
Most recently Armitage wrote thelibretto for an opera scored by Scottish composerStuart MacRae,The Assassin Tree, based on a Greek myth recounted inThe Golden Bough. The opera premiered at the 2006Edinburgh International Festival, Scotland, before moving to theRoyal Opera House,Covent Garden, London.Saturday Night (Century Films, BBC2, 1996) – wrote and narrated a fifty-minute poetic commentary to a documentary about nightlife in Leeds, directed by Brian Hill. In 2010, Armitage walked the 264-milePennine Way, walking south from Scotland toDerbyshire. 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, calledWalking Home.[8]
In 2007 he released an album of songs co-written with the musician Craig Smith, under the band nameThe Scaremongers.[128]
In 2016 the arts programme14–18 NOW commissioned a series of poems by Simon Armitage as part of a five-year programme of new artwork created specifically to mark the centenary of the First World War. The poems are a response to six aerial or panoramic photographs of battlefields from the archive of theImperial War Museum in London. The poetry collectionStill premiered at the Norfolk & Norwich Festival and has been published in partnership withEnitharmon Press.[129]
In 2019 he was commissioned by Sky Arts to create an epic poem and filmThe Brink as one of 50 projects in "Art 50" looking at British Identity in the light ofBrexit. 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.[130]
In 2020 and 2021 Armitage produced apodcast,The Poet Laureate Has Gone to His Shed, also broadcast onBBC Radio 4, in which, while working on the medieval poemThe Owl and the Nightingale, he invited a series of 20 guests to come and talk to him in his garden writing-shed;[131][132] a third series of eight episodes was broadcast in 2023.[133] In 2025 Armitage announced that as the BBC were not planning to commission any further series, he planned to relaunch it as a podcast with another broadcaster.[134]
Armitage worked withBrian Hill onWhere Did The World Go?, a "pandemic poem" which "examines life and loss in lockdown and binds the whole narrative with a new, overarching poem from Armitage",[135] and was shown onBBC Two in June 2021.[136][137] In December 2020, he was featured walking fromRavenscar, along the old Cinder Track, a disused railway line, past Boggle Hole toRobin Hood's Bay, in theWinter Walks series on BBC Four.[138] In August 2022 Armitage presentedLarkin Revisited, a BBC Radio 4 series commemoratingPhilip Larkin's centenary, examining a single Larkin poem in each of the ten episodes.[139] In November 2022 Armitage was the narrator in a performance ofThe Owl and the Nigtingale onBBC Radio 4 in withMaxine Peake (owl) andRachael Stirling (nightingale).[140]
Armitage lives in theHolme Valley,West Yorkshire, close to his family home in Marsden.[141] His first wife was Alison Tootell: they married in 1991.[142] He then married radio producer Sue Roberts; they have a daughter, Emmeline, born in 2000.[143] Emmeline won the 2017 SLAMbassadors national youthpoetry slam for 13–18-year-olds.[144] Continuing in both her father's and grandfather's tradition, she is a member of theNational Youth Theatre and a singer.[145]
He is a supporter of his local football team,Huddersfield Town, and refers to it many times in his bookAll Points North (1996). He is also abirdwatcher.[146]
Armitage is the first poet laureate who is also adisc jockey.[4][147] He is a music fan, especially ofThe Smiths.[4] 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.[4] Their only album,Born in a Barn, was released in 2010.[148] Armitage is the lead singer ofLYR (Land Yacht Regatta), a band he is in alongside singer-songwriterRichard Walters and producer Patrick J Pearson.[149] The band signed to Mercury KX, part ofDecca Records. They released their debut albumCall in the Crash Team in 2020 and a single, "Winter Solstice", in 2021 featuringWendy Smith fromPrefab Sprout.[150][151][152][153][154][155][156]
Points of Reference – on the history of navigation and orientation, for BBC Radio 4.
From Salford to Jericho – A verse drama for BBC Radio 4.
To Bahia and Beyond – Five travelogue features in verse withGlyn Maxwell from Brazil and theAmazon for BBC Radio 3.
The Bayeux Tapestry – A six-part dramatisation, with Geoff Young, for BBC Radio 3.
Saturday Night (1996) – Century Films/BBC TV
A Tree Full of Monkeys (2002) – commissioned by BBC Radio 3, withZoviet France.
The Odyssey (2004) – A three-part dramatisation for BBC Radio 4.
Writing the City (2005) – commissioned by BBC Radio 3.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (2010) – BBC documentary[177]
Gods and Monsters — Homer's Odyssey (2010) – BBC documentary
The Making of King Arthur (2010) – BBC documentary
The Pendle Witch Child (2011) – BBC documentary, examining the role of Jennet Device in thePendle Witch Trials
Black Roses: The Killing of Sophie Lancaster (2011), consisting of poems telling the story ofSophie Lancaster's life, together with the personal recollections of her mother.
The Last Days of Troy (2015) – A two-part dramatisation for BBC Radio 4.
The Brink (2018) – a meditation on the British relationship with Europe in the light of Brexit. For Sky Arts.[178]
^Childs, Tony (2012). "Introduction".The poetry of Simon Armitage: a study guide for GCSE students. London:Faber and Faber.ISBN978-0-571-27825-1.OCLC779244544.Simon Armitage has become one of the most popular and widely studied poets for school students ... studying any of his poems for GCSE ... poems set for study by either OCR or AQA or Edexcel
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