Cloudcuckooland

Description

In 1996, Simon Armitage bought a powerful Russian telescope and began to inspect the night sky from his West Yorkshire home. The sequence of short poems in the middle of this book must have something to do with that new interest, each receiving its classical title from one of the constellations, while turning out to be less concerned with pure astronomy than with moments in the life of the poet's mind. Celestial themes loom large elsewhere, with a number of what could be called religious poems towards the beginning of the book, and a play based on events around a total eclipse of the sun at the end. This dramatic tour de force was commissioned by the National Theatre, for performance by children, and confirmed Armitage as one of our true poetic experimenters - ceaselessly exploring and capable of making his stylistic advances without ever losing the confidence of his audience.

Simon Armitage was born in Huddersfield in 1963. After reading Geography at Portsmouth Polytechnic he went on to do a course in Social Work and Psychology at Manchester University. For a time he worked in Manchester as a Probation Officer.Simon Armitage's first book of poetry, Zoom! (Bloodaxe), was a Poetry Book Society Choice and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize. His second collection, Kid, was published by Faber in 1992 to instant and wide acclaim. It was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize and Simon Armitage was voted 'Most Promising New Poet' for the Forward Poetry Prize. In 1993 he was the Sunday Times 'Young Writer of the Year'. His third collection, Book of Matches, was published in the Autumn of that year to great acclaim. In May 1994 he was selected as one of the twenty young poets included in the Poetry Society's high profile 'New Generation Poets' promotion.In September 1995 Faber published The Dead Sea Poem