(and what a way to be christened!)
We were fortunate enough and truly delighted to see...
... the Simon Armitage (poet, playwright and novelist, and all-round funny guy)
Ready and raring in the minibus with our reliable driver, (thanks go to Mr. Steve) twelve lucky members of the newly formed 'Eng Soc' set off for Chester University to see a major literary influence. Simon Armitage proved to be a humorous, knowledgeable and sensitive character with just the right balance of vapid daring, to me his poetry came across as delightfully 'mundangerous'.
He not only engaged with the room with his quick wit and relaxed yet powerful readings but also showed a frighteningly acute eye and astute knowledge for modern life. With such poems as 'Nurse at a Bus Stop' and 'You're beautiful' in which the rhythm brings a colloquial voice and questions about a mind. 'You're beautiful because your classically trained' a benevolent comment of admiration and veneration followed by 'I'm ugly because I associate piano wire with strangulation'. Do we experience an insight into an unstable mind, see a glimpse of madness or a longing for unrequited love. Or perhaps Armitage uses this melancholy, this lullaby of loss to reinforce an unspoken message of living life because otherwise 'when [we]sigh it's like the slow collapse of a circus tent'.
Perhaps that's why Armitage was so easy to engage with.
Thirteen people went into the room knowing a little about his work and his life and his prizes and shared a unanimous appreciation for his poems and his forms and how he manipulates his devices.
Yet thirteen people left the Chester lecture theatre with smiles spread on their faces and the effects of a two and a half our minibus journey ironed out of their clothes and loosened in their joints.
We gained a different perspective on the interwoven tapestry that is life.
So Thank You Simon Armitage.
(Now when's the next trip!)
