Britain’s current Poet Laureate is Simon Armitage. He has done a huge amount to make poetry accessible to everyday people and does readings in pubs, village halls, barns and bookshops. He is also an excellent travel writer. His book Walking Home: Travels with a Troubadour on the Pennine Way was published in 2012. This gruelling 256-mile walk passes the village where Simon lives. He decided to set out on the walk, heading north-to-south, which is the harder way to do it. He set out without a penny in his pocket, deciding to fund the trip by passing around an empty sock at the end of his poetry readings to see what people felt like giving, and also by relying on the kindness of people who offered him beds.
A few years after that, he published Walking Away: Further Travels with a Troubadour on the South West Coast Path, in which he walks 265 miles in Somerset, Devon and Cornwall. The south-west is a part of England Simon didn’t know very well and his reflections on the people and the scenery, the wildlife and the views, as well as on the hardship of the walk, are highly entertaining. He’s a funny writer and I loved reading about what got put into the sock at the ends of his readings. He writes in the book: “I conceived the walk as a test of my poetic reputation … in some ways I felt as if I was testing the reputation of poetry itself.” He gets to Lands End and then travels on to the Islands of Scilly (not a place I’ve ever visited), and throughout much of the walk he gets very, very wet.
I did not think this second book is quite as good as the first, but it is still well worth reading. Simon, at times, seems depressed by the scenery – those many hills that he has to scale and descend blunt his admiration for the stunning views. The most passionate moment in the book is when he hears from a journalist who rings him up, of the death of fellow poet Seamus Heaney. His wife drives to meet him and the two of them grieve his friend by reading Heaney’s poems together late into the night. Armitage recognises Heaney’s greatness and sincerely mourns the loss to the world of literature caused by the Irish poet’s death.
I once just missed hearing Simon Armitage read in Grasmere, in the heart of Wordsworth country. The event was booked out, and I had to move on with my tour group, but I did long to stay and hear him. Hopefully, I’ll have more luck next time. I can really recommend his walking books.
Have you read either of these books, or any of Simon’s poetry? Let me know in a comment.
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