Simon Armitage

It was such a treat to be at St Oswald's Church in Grasmere yesterday evening, listening to the incomparable Simon Armitage, reading his poetry.

He regaled us with selections from his latest poetry collections. He is a truly fabulous poet and I love his Northerness.

As well as his own poetry collections he read some excerpts from his translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Death of King Arthur. I say translations when really Armitage has made these works his own.

The setting, St Oswald's Church in Grasmere, the burial place of Dorothy and William Wordsworth, was so appropriate. The evening felt steeped in poetry and, for a few hours, I was lifted out of everyday worries and transported to a better place!

To me this is the true purpose of poetry: to make the reader/listener aware of the beauty and music of language, to make simple concepts beautiful and memorable and to transport you to a different world.

Simon Armitage with his rough hewn language and down to earth Northerness, certainly achieved all of these things for me.

I think that Armitage's poetry truly embodies one of Wordsworth's revolutionary poetic aims to show that "men who do not wear fine clothes can feel deeply".

A truly lovely and memorable evening.