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23 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It Almost Makes Me...But Not Quite, 30 Jun 2002
Okay, I'll be honest: I HATE the North of England with quite a passion. I lived the first two years of my life in Liverpool and the last fifteen in W Yorkshire. So my whole life i have been up here, passionately hating it. I look forward to going to University in a few months in Cambridge with a fervour. I hate almost everything about where I live. Seriously.And yet, a couple of years ago, when I first read Simon Armitage's poetry, and even though so much of it is based around...not parochialism (because S.Armitage HAS travelled about, it's just that, bafflingly, he's settled back up here again)...but a (to me) strange love of The North, and that love is something completely alien to me, I couldn't help but get sucked into the language, the subjects and the new way in which Simon Armitage communicates his love of where he lives. Perhaps it was the silly thrill of reading placenames, even shop names (like Bronx Clothing in Huddersfield, which I walk past every college day), and thinking...I know there. I've looked at that too. I've looked at somewhere that Simon Armitage has looked at. But when he looked he saw something poetic and beautiful, but when I looked I saw something ugly and hardfaced. Or perhaps it was the dizziness of that I SEE, every day of my life, where the poetry comes from, but I disagree so much with the essence of it. but the stunningly skilful way in which it's written makes me want to read anyway, to disagree. It's also, maybe (and for me, worryingly!) that I know S.Armitage is completely sincere with all his feelings for this place in which he and I both live. I've met him, several times. He's a lovely man. He IS everything Northern, but minus the ugly, hardfaced, parochialism that is so trademark up here. If everyone from Yorkshire were like Simon Armitage - blunt, amusing, intelligent, creative, friendly - then I'm sure I'd be as enthusiastic about living up here as he is. I've seen him reading his poems and prose. I've seen him read out lines about his love for this place, while we were actually IN this place. The wonderful thing about him is that he means every word of it. So perhaps that's what makes this book so special to me: I think every positive thing written is the opposite from the truth, but that's probably part of the attraction. But Simon Armitage could write about a WHEELIE BIN and make it sound transcendental. This book is a must: whether you share Simon's thoughs of The North, whether you share mine, or whether you're lucky enough to be well away from here!
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by Simon Armitage
by Simon Armitage
by Simon Armitage
by Simon Armitage
by Simon Armitage
