In all the poems I've written I've not really engaged in politics, and when I've found myself moving in that direction I've always stopped myself.

- Simon Armitage

As far as I can tell, there are two kinds of poets: those who want to tell stories and sing songs, and those who want to work out the chemical equati…

- Simon Armitage

Where does the hand become the wrist? where does the neck become the shoulder? The watershed and then the weight, whatever turns up and tips us ove…

- Simon Armitage

This misfortune you find is of your own manufacture.

- Simon Armitage

It’s never going to be very mainstream. One reason is that poetry requires concentration, both on the part of the writer and the reader. But it’s kin…

- Simon Armitage

Killing time in the precinct, I find a copy of one of my early volumes in a dump-bin on the pavement outside the charity shop. The price is 10p. It i…

- Simon Armitage

We still need a voice that thinks before it speaks.

- Simon Armitage

People who read poetry, for example, like the feel, the heft and the smell of a book.

- Simon Armitage

You’re beautiful because when you were born, undiscovered planets lined up to peep over the rim of your cradle and lay gifts of gravity and light at …

- Simon Armitage