Simon Armitage is a geographer as well as a poet.
He studied Geography at university, and many of his poems explore geographical themes.
I feel a close link to Simon in several ways.
My friend Rob, who is a poet, has attended poetry readings and read his poems alongside Simon.
This piece in the Guardian is excellent on the idea of place informing his work: Marsden in particular.
I did my degree at Huddersfield and visited / passed through Marsden quite regularly during that time.

Simon has also taken part in some projects linking his words to the landscape.
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. Armitage wrote a sequence of six poems, In Memory of Water. Each poem was carved into stones at various sites along the South Pennine watershed between Marsden and Ilkley. These sites now form the 45 mile Stanza Stones Trail. The mystery seventh stone, sited in an unnamed location, has yet to be found.
Subsequently, Northumberland National Park’s Sill Arts Programme commissioned Armitage to write six new poems for the Poems in the Air project. Walkers in the area can now use the Poems in the Air mobile phone app to unlock the opportunity to hear each poem at the site which inspired it.
In Praise of Air was the world’s first catalytic poem. 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. The poster absorbed more than two tonnes of air pollution before it was turned into multiple artworks and sold in aid of charity.
He studied Geography at university, and many of his poems explore geographical themes.
I feel a close link to Simon in several ways.
My friend Rob, who is a poet, has attended poetry readings and read his poems alongside Simon.
This piece in the Guardian is excellent on the idea of place informing his work: Marsden in particular.
I did my degree at Huddersfield and visited / passed through Marsden quite regularly during that time.

Simon has also taken part in some projects linking his words to the landscape.
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. Armitage wrote a sequence of six poems, In Memory of Water. Each poem was carved into stones at various sites along the South Pennine watershed between Marsden and Ilkley. These sites now form the 45 mile Stanza Stones Trail. The mystery seventh stone, sited in an unnamed location, has yet to be found.
Subsequently, Northumberland National Park’s Sill Arts Programme commissioned Armitage to write six new poems for the Poems in the Air project. Walkers in the area can now use the Poems in the Air mobile phone app to unlock the opportunity to hear each poem at the site which inspired it.
In Praise of Air was the world’s first catalytic poem. 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. The poster absorbed more than two tonnes of air pollution before it was turned into multiple artworks and sold in aid of charity.
Comments