In Simon Armitage's work, there has always been a territory he identifies as 'a twilight zone' where poetry and song lyric converge. He has explored it through numerous enterprises - most recently with the 'ambient post-rock' band Land Yacht Regatta. Many of the lyrics collected here were written for LYR. Others are drawn from Armitage's days with the DIY indie band The Scaremongers, various film and theatre productions including Songbirds and the BAFTA-winning Feltham Sings, and other miscellaneous ventures. The volume's 'Intro' charts these projects and the blurred origins of ritualised language, while its 'Outro' offers contextualising notes and anecdotal insights.

Never Good with Horses further demonstrates the rich range of Armitage's repertoire and celebrates his ear for the music of language, harnessed here for the page.

The first-ever collection of the Poet Laureate's lyric output.

About the Author
Simon Armitage was born in West Yorkshire and is Professor of Poetry at the University of Leeds. A recipient of numerous prizes and awards, his collections of poetry include Seeing Stars (2010), The Unaccompanied (2017), Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic (2019), Magnetic Field (2020) and his acclaimed translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (2007). He writes extensively for television and radio, and is the author of two novels and the non-fiction bestsellers All Points North (1998), Walking Home (2012) and Walking Away (2015). His theatre works include The Last Days of Troy, performed at Shakespeare's Globe in 2014. From 2015 to 2019, he served as Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford, and, in 2018, he was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. Simon Armitage is Poet Laureate.


Book Information
ISBN 9780571377619
Author Simon Armitage
Format Hardback
Page Count 208
Imprint Faber & Faber
Publisher Faber & Faber
Weight(grams) 380g
Dimensions(mm) 224mm * 148mm * 19mm