Simon Armitage
He talks to Olivia Edward about one of the least-explored places left on the planet, why he won't go back to the rainforest and how bad poetry can leave him feeling violent.
I was brought up in Marsden (on the Yorkshire–Lancashire border). It’s a village of about 3,000 or 4,000 people – an ex-textile village with lots of mills that used to do everything from sheering sheep to putting the buttons on suits. By the time I was growing up, they were all closing down.
It’s quite unusual to grow up and stay in a certain part of the world. People are either envious or curious. A lot of the writers I know have been quite transitory. They haven’t wanted to write about roots and lineage and legacy. But within the arts, the margin has become the new centre. People are interested in hearing voices from the edge.
I went to Portsmouth Polytechnic to study geography because a girl I was going out with at the time went to Southampton. She dumped me after about three weeks. I lived, but I was very homesick. I felt as though I had fetched up on the south coast in what seemed like a completely alien environment – I found Portsmouth quite a hostile and aggressive city in some ways.
I’ve got quite a few poems from that period written directly out of things we had been studying. One is called ‘The Peruvian Anchovy Industry’ – it’s all about the fluctuating populations of anchovies – and then there’s ‘Guano Farming in the South Atlantic’, and another poem called ‘Cultural Studies’.
They warned us on the course that we could end up being a jack of all trades, master of none, but I’ve always felt that about myself anyway. I’m someone who likes to take an interest in a lot of things but only to a certain depth.
After university, I came back home and went on the dole. I had no idea what I was going to do. Economically, they were difficult times. It was 1984, just after the miners’ strike and there was quite a peculiar atmosphere in the country.
Working for the probation service seems like a different life now. I’m glad I did it. It was great fun, but I couldn’t do it again. I’m too soft now.
Writing has taken me all over the world. In the past 18 months I’ve been to Mauritius, Dubai, Mumbai, Seattle, New York. [All this travel] was totally unexpected. I’ve always associated writing, especially poetry, with being in an attic somewhere, being very poor, and very lonely, and a bit weird.
I’d imagined the Brazilian rainforest might be a bit like the Garden of Eden – really pleasant, with tame animals coming up to you all the time and incredible views. But it’s really hot and you can’t see anything, just trees. It’s like being in cloisters. You can’t get above the canopy. When I went there [with the BBC] I found it quite claustrophobic. It made me appreciate living around here, where you can get up onto the hills and get a really big gulp of air.
Poetry is an interesting substance. It’s not ideal for direct campaigning. If you sense the way a poem is trying to take you, I think the natural instinct is to try to resist it. One of my great poetic heroes is Ted Hughes. He was a passionate environmentalist but he didn’t write poems that urged you to go and lobby your MP. He celebrated forms of nature, and in that way, convinced you that you wanted to share in that celebration as well.
There’s no worse form of advocacy than a bad poem. Someone can write a very passionate poem about saving seal cubs, but if it’s a bad poem it just makes you want to go out and club those cubs over the head.
People mistakenly believe that they need to travel to far-off places to be inspired to write. I’ve got a poem that’s called ‘It Ain’t What You Do, It’s What It Does to You’. It’s a manifesto poem about exactly that. You don’t have to travel very far at all to reinterpret the world in a poem. And if you can write poems about the things right in front of you, you’re going to have a huge audience who will be familiar with those things.
One of the geographical areas that’s massively underexplored is the inside of the human mind. Geography starts here in our heads and goes outwards.
I’ve still got that childish sort of Boy’s Own wonder about the world – that it’s still somehow up-for-grabs and open for exploration. It reminds me of the first time I explored beyond this banking that overlooked my mum and dad’s house. I still feel that excitement when I’m setting off, even if I’m only going down the motorway.
Curriculum Vitae
1963 Born in Marsden, West Yorkshire
1975-81 Colne Valley High School, Linthwaite, Huddersfield
1981-84 BA Hons in geography from Portsmouth Polytechnic
1984-86 Volunteer worker at borstals and hostels with young offenders and worked as a non-qualified probation officer
1986-88 MA Diploma in social work at the University of Manchester
1988-95 Worked as a probation officer for greater Manchester Probation Service
1989 First book of poetry, Zoom!, published
2001 First novel, Little Green Man, published
September 2009
I was brought up in Marsden (on the Yorkshire–Lancashire border). It’s a village of about 3,000 or 4,000 people – an ex-textile village with lots of mills that used to do everything from sheering sheep to putting the buttons on suits. By the time I was growing up, they were all closing down.
It’s quite unusual to grow up and stay in a certain part of the world. People are either envious or curious. A lot of the writers I know have been quite transitory. They haven’t wanted to write about roots and lineage and legacy. But within the arts, the margin has become the new centre. People are interested in hearing voices from the edge.
I went to Portsmouth Polytechnic to study geography because a girl I was going out with at the time went to Southampton. She dumped me after about three weeks. I lived, but I was very homesick. I felt as though I had fetched up on the south coast in what seemed like a completely alien environment – I found Portsmouth quite a hostile and aggressive city in some ways.
I’ve got quite a few poems from that period written directly out of things we had been studying. One is called ‘The Peruvian Anchovy Industry’ – it’s all about the fluctuating populations of anchovies – and then there’s ‘Guano Farming in the South Atlantic’, and another poem called ‘Cultural Studies’.
They warned us on the course that we could end up being a jack of all trades, master of none, but I’ve always felt that about myself anyway. I’m someone who likes to take an interest in a lot of things but only to a certain depth.
After university, I came back home and went on the dole. I had no idea what I was going to do. Economically, they were difficult times. It was 1984, just after the miners’ strike and there was quite a peculiar atmosphere in the country.
Working for the probation service seems like a different life now. I’m glad I did it. It was great fun, but I couldn’t do it again. I’m too soft now.
Writing has taken me all over the world. In the past 18 months I’ve been to Mauritius, Dubai, Mumbai, Seattle, New York. [All this travel] was totally unexpected. I’ve always associated writing, especially poetry, with being in an attic somewhere, being very poor, and very lonely, and a bit weird.
I’d imagined the Brazilian rainforest might be a bit like the Garden of Eden – really pleasant, with tame animals coming up to you all the time and incredible views. But it’s really hot and you can’t see anything, just trees. It’s like being in cloisters. You can’t get above the canopy. When I went there [with the BBC] I found it quite claustrophobic. It made me appreciate living around here, where you can get up onto the hills and get a really big gulp of air.
Poetry is an interesting substance. It’s not ideal for direct campaigning. If you sense the way a poem is trying to take you, I think the natural instinct is to try to resist it. One of my great poetic heroes is Ted Hughes. He was a passionate environmentalist but he didn’t write poems that urged you to go and lobby your MP. He celebrated forms of nature, and in that way, convinced you that you wanted to share in that celebration as well.
There’s no worse form of advocacy than a bad poem. Someone can write a very passionate poem about saving seal cubs, but if it’s a bad poem it just makes you want to go out and club those cubs over the head.
People mistakenly believe that they need to travel to far-off places to be inspired to write. I’ve got a poem that’s called ‘It Ain’t What You Do, It’s What It Does to You’. It’s a manifesto poem about exactly that. You don’t have to travel very far at all to reinterpret the world in a poem. And if you can write poems about the things right in front of you, you’re going to have a huge audience who will be familiar with those things.
One of the geographical areas that’s massively underexplored is the inside of the human mind. Geography starts here in our heads and goes outwards.
I’ve still got that childish sort of Boy’s Own wonder about the world – that it’s still somehow up-for-grabs and open for exploration. It reminds me of the first time I explored beyond this banking that overlooked my mum and dad’s house. I still feel that excitement when I’m setting off, even if I’m only going down the motorway.
Curriculum Vitae
1963 Born in Marsden, West Yorkshire
1975-81 Colne Valley High School, Linthwaite, Huddersfield
1981-84 BA Hons in geography from Portsmouth Polytechnic
1984-86 Volunteer worker at borstals and hostels with young offenders and worked as a non-qualified probation officer
1986-88 MA Diploma in social work at the University of Manchester
1988-95 Worked as a probation officer for greater Manchester Probation Service
1989 First book of poetry, Zoom!, published
2001 First novel, Little Green Man, published
September 2009
