**The classic story that inspired the film starring Dev Patel and Alicia Vikander."A medieval romance…but also an outlandish ghost story, a gripping morality tale and a weird thriller.…I couldn’t put down Simon Armitage’s compulsively readable...energetic, free-flowing, high-spirited version." —Edward Hirsch, New York Times Book Review**One of the founding stories of English literature, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight narrates the strange tale of a green k...

ONE OF THE BEST POETRY BOOKS OF THE YEAR FROM THE GUARDIAN AND THE OBSERVER • From the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, a poem sequence that considers our use of the land that surrounds him, and recounts the personal tales of beauty and loss that play out on itA few years ago, in the poet’s home county of West Yorkshire, the Local Authority began converting a series of cow fields near his home into a new cemetery. As the graveyard takes shape, its presence on t...

From the UK Poet Laureate and bestselling translator, a spirited book that demystifies and celebrates the art of poetry todayIn A Vertical Art, acclaimed poet Simon Armitage takes a refreshingly common-sense approach to an art form that can easily lend itself to grand statements and hollow gestures. Questioning both the facile and obscure ends of the poetry spectrum, he offers sparkling new insights about poetry and an array of favorite poets.Based...

Nineteen days, 256 miles, and one renowned poet walking the backbone of England.The wandering poet has always been a feature of our cultural imagination. Odysseus journeys home, his famous flair for storytelling seducing friend and foe. The Romantic poets tramped all over the Lake District searching for inspiration. Now Simon Armitage, with equal parts enthusiasm and trepidation, as well as a wry humor all his own, has taken on Britain’s version of our Appalachian Trail: the Pennin...

Award-winning poet Simon Armitage dramatizes the story of Troy, animating this classic epic for a new generation of readers.Following his highly acclaimed dramatization of the Odyssey, Simon Armitage here takes on the fate of Troy, bringing Homer’s Iliad to life with refreshing imaginative vision. In the final days of the Trojan War, the Trojans and the Greeks are caught in a bitter stalemate. Exhausted and desperate after ten years of warfare, gods and men battle ...

From the UK Poet Laureate and bestselling translator of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a complete verse translation of a spirited and humorous medieval English poemThe Owl and the Nightingale, one of the earliest literary works in Middle English, is a lively, anonymous comic poem about two birds who embark on a war of words in a wood, with a nearby poet reporting their argument in rhyming couplets, line by line and blow by blow. In this engaging...

A propulsive and lyrical version of ancient Mesopotamia’s greatest adventure–tale, by the bestselling translator of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.Originating nearly four thousand years ago in ancient Mesopotamia, the epic of Gilgamesh tells the story of a tyrannical king and his wild counterpart, Enkidu, spawned by the gods to rein in the king’s cruel tendencies. They face off in a violent wrestling match, but the clash forges a bond between the...

From one of the most important British poets at work today comes a brilliant new collection that meditates on human battles past and present, on youth and age, on monsters and underdogs, on the life of nations and the individual heart.In Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus the Corduroy Kid, we meet a writer who speaks naturally, and with frankness and restraint, for his culture. Armitage witnesses the pathos of women at work in the mock-Tudor Merrie England coffeehouses and gives us ...

Now in paperback, the powerful selected work of Simon Armitage, the most distinctive poetic voice of contemporary Britain.Simon Armitage is arguably the leading British poet of the past twenty years. His knowledge of the English just as they are ("a gentleman farmer / living on reduced means, a cricketer's widow, / sowing a kitchen garden with sweet peas"), his colloquial Yorkshire wit and eye for situational ironies, his ability to steal up on us with the surreal while capturing t...

A thrilling new collection from the hugely acclaimed British poet Simon Armitage. With its vivid array of dramatic monologues, allegories, and tall tales, this absurdist, unreal exploration of modern society brings us a chorus of unique and unforgettable voices.All are welcome at this twilit, visionary carnival: the man whose wife drapes a border-curtain across the middle of the marital home; the black bear with a dark secret; the woman who oversees giant snowballs in the freezer. ...

This book brings together three verse form pieces each of which was created to be part of a broader form. 'Out of the Blue' itself is a powerful, award-winning, poem-film created five years after the attacks which destroyed the twin towers in NewYork. With a title from a speech of Churchill, 'We May Allow Ourselves a Brief Period of Rejoicing' was a Channel 5 commission for a broadcast celebrating the 60th anniversary of VE Day. The third, 'Cambodia', comes from the radio drama The Violenc...

'A firework display of technique, versatility and passion.' Independent on Sunday'The crafted sincerity of this potent, lyrical collection, in which an absolutely contemporary voice concisely expresses common concerns, is everything that poetry should be.' Times Literary Supplement'The first poet of serious artistic intent since Philip Larkin to have achieved popularity . . . it is possible that he will attain the sort of proverbial status Larkin now occup...