Yesterday I had the great good fortune to be able to attend Simon Armitage's event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. The event was actually already sold out, but a friend who had a ticket was unable to attend and had passed her ticket on to me!
I had already bought the book in the festival bookshop before the event and had read it all while queueing to get into the Spiegeltent where Armitage (the UK's Poet Laureate) was to speak. It's a short book, full of accessible poetry and beautifully presented, with wonderful illustrations by Beth Munro.
The book focuses on the places where animals live and was inspired by the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall. Poems range from haiku to Insect Hotel, which imagines Trip Advisor type reviews from a range of inhabitants:
"Stopped here overnight on the way to a decaying oak a couple of miles away and ended up hibernating for the whole winter. Would deffo recommend. Dreamland."
At the event, chaired by Nick Barley (former director of the Edinburgh International Boook Festival and now director of the National Poetry Centre in Leeds) Armitage read from Dwell and discussed his writing process and the state of nature conservation in the UK.
Some people have commented that the book seems 'slight', which on first glance it might do (though I prefer to think of it as small and perfectly formed). However, the poems in the book have a double life and will themselves dwell in the Lost Gardens of Heligan, in a series of installations around the site, so that people will be able to find poetry as they walk around.
It was an excellent event and the book would make a beautiful gift for any poetry lover or anyone interested in animal homes. And if you get the chance, visit the Lost Gardens of Heligan and see if you can find the poems in situ!
Dwell by Simon Armitage, published by Faber (2025)
3 comments:
What a lovely event, Juliet. We bought a copy of Armitage's 'Blossom' last year at Anglesey Abbey (Cambs) where as part of a blossom fest we had fun writing our own poems. I wonder how long Armitage's poems will be on display in Heligan...
Hi Caroline, the blossom fest poetry writing at Anglesey Abbey sounds like a lovely event too (it's a beautiful location, certainly). I don't know how long the poems will be on display at Heligan, that didn't come up (they've not all been installed as yet).
Yes, Juliet, we enjoyed the blossom fest. I'll head over to the Heligan website ...
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