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Universal Home Doctor
Splinter
Was it a fall in pressure or some upward force
that went to the head of that spikelet of glass
and drew it through flesh, caused it to show its face
so many years to the day after the great crash.
The Universal Home Doctor is Armitage's most personal
collection yet and, as the title -- implies, reads like his
own private encyclopaedia of emotion and health. These vivid
and moving poems recount numerous memories and personal joumeys
from across the globe, but with a constant reference to the
most universal and intimate landscape of all, the human body.
Armitage also brings into question the idea of home and what
it means to be English.
Sean O'Brien has described Armitage as `the first poet of
serious artistic intent since Philip Larkin to have achieved
popularity . . . it is possible that he will attain the sort
of proverbial status Larkin now occupies.' Poetry Review
called him `the front man of his generation . . . the most
imaginative and prolific poet now writing.' Simon Armitage
was born in West Yorkshire in 1963. In 1992 he won one of
the first Forward Prizes, and a year later was the Sunday
Times Young Writer of the Year. In 1999 the Poetry Society
appointed him as poet in residence with the New Millennium
Experience Company, from which came the 1000 line poem Killing
Time (1999). He works as a freelance writer and broadcaster
and playwright, has written extensively for radio and television,
and lectures in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan
University and the University of Iowa. His impressive body
of work includes Kid,
Book of Matches,
The Dead Sea Poems,
CIoudCuckooLand,
and Selected
Poems, published by Faber last year to great acclaim
He is also the author of a novel, Little
Green Man.
The Universal Home Doctor will more than confirm Simon
Armitage's position in the first rank of British poets.
The
Stone Beach
The
Stone Beach, taken from The
Universal Home Doctor, on the Guardian
web site.
The Universal Home Doctor was published alongside
Travelling Songs.
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