In the footsteps of the bards

Simon Armitage, Winner of the Forward Poetry Prize and Sunday Times "Young Writer of the Year" Award talks to SACHIDANANDA MOHANTY about his poetry, his experience in public broadcasting and the place of the younger generation of poets in Britain today.

IN 1994, Simon Armitage was selected as one of the 20 New Generation Poets. His Dead Sea Poems was a Poetry Book Society choice in 1995 and was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Whitebread Poetry Award. He has written poetry extensively for radio and television and contributes regularly to the Mark Redcliffe Show on Radio-1.

He has seven collections of poetry to his credit.

Armitage is quiet, soft spoken and gracious. He has an exemplary sense of humility, unlike many of his successful counterparts. On a foggy morning recently, we sat in a corner of Downing College, Cambridge University and talked.

Excerpts from the interview:

Sachidananda Mohanty: Would you like to tell me what it means to be a poet in Britain today?

Simon Armitage: I think one of the pleasures is that you can pursue your own dreams and invent your own universe in it. One of the nice things of being affirmed as a writer in the eyes of others is that you are justified in pursuing the dream. If you sell books and people come to your readings, then you feel they are interested in the universe you have created and inhabit. From a political point of view, I suppose the important thing for me is that we seem to be in age when we are completely surrounded by chaotic noise. Most of it is absolutely valueless. But the strength of poetry is that it is one voice which means, without any accompaniment, one single voice. I think when that happens, it is very alluring because it is not often that we get it. I think that is why people are attracted to it and perhaps even more in this country.

What has been your background and your parentage? To what extent has this been responsible for your choice of poetry as a career?

I do not think I had a literary background at any time. I just decided to go to University. There was no educational background in our family. My parents were working class, my mother was a teaching assistant. My dad had various jobs. He was a fireman. He ended up in the probation service. I did a geography degree first. Then I went to Manchester and I did M.A. in psychology. Around this time I was reading poetry books in the library and I started going to some writing workshops at the University on a kind of voluntary basis when I was about 20.

We were astounded to discover the sales figure of some of your books. This is amazing! It does not happen in any other part of the world including India.

My first book came out in 1989 and the most recent sales figure for that book was 11,200. The next book was published in 1992 and I just got a statement the other day that over 10,900 - were published. Something like that!

A very impressive figure indeed.

It is figure I am very impressed with ...

There is an active community of poetry readers in England.

I was saying the other day that one thing that characterises contemporary British poetry is a relationship with the general public. I think that is very important. Some aspects and branches of poetry are of course insular, academic, ratified, not wanting to communicate or to pursue. Mine is not that kind of poetry. I think I am in the bardic tradition. I do want an audience to say something to and I want to encourage an audience. I do that without sacrificing the integrity or poignancy and I am very pleased with the way things have turned out. It is part of my job to keep that going.

What differences do you find in the way poetry is received in North-America vis-a-vis in England?

Well, my experience with North America is limited to six or seven trips that I have made there. It seems to me that poetry in North America is confined almost absolutely to the campus and I do not think there are many sales of poetry books beyond that. I think poetry does not have a relationship with mass-culture in America. (It is a very antagonistic one). I do not think that it should pander to mass culture because that is a very dangerous thing. And so poetry in North-America is very different stuff than it is here.

I understand that you have done a number of assignments for the BBC and other organisations as a means of your livelihood. You are sent on assignments to different parts of the world, some of them very exotic. Do you think that this is relevant to your task as a poet or do you think that it is extraneous? There are some people who believe in a puristic approach to the discipline. Have you found any conflict of interest between the two or have you found them to be complementary?

Well, first I did think that travel writing as poetry was a kind of contradiction because I wanted to write from inside a certain territory which I knew well and to me that boundary was Britain, I suppose, and as I was writing to a British audience, I felt confident in that. And I also thought that there would be something patronising or sarcastic about going to another country and trying to encapsulate something of that country within a short poem. Maybe it is something to do with the idea of global culture. May be it is to try and extend my writing. One of the great things about such travels is that one comes to know a number of writers there and you know some of those distant voices fed back into my own work.

What is your perception of India? Would you like to visit India as a poet?

I would love to visit India. Never been there. My perception of it is an exotic one. It is one that has been fuelled by story books and things I have seen on T.V., hundreds of back issues in the National Geographic. There is a big Indian population where I live. It is a very strong and lively community. Lots of my friends have been there. The writing tradition there seems to me very important and lively and that is something that I would like to know more about.

Indian poetry has given lot of importance to the oral tradition as well as the use of rhythm. One finds that you use rhythm very prominently in your poetry and there is also dexterity with word- play. Has it come naturally to you or have you developed it consciously?

I think it is a bit of both. The question is whether you have an innate sense of rhythm and know where it comes from. Presumably, it has something to do with the way your brain is made. I think I have got a background in listening to music. My parents used to listen to a lot of music and lot of songs. And my dad used to recite a lot of rhythms and things like that. I think it is a kind of legacy in that sense. But for me it is a question of going away and coming back and say this is "my rhythm".

How many volumes of poetry have you published so far?

Seven.

And what is the latest?

The latest one is called The Universal Homedoctor which is the title of a 1950 and 1960 Encyclopedia Of Health.

Is your poetry read and studied in the universities in England and other parts of the world?

Yes, it is. I cannot keep track of it. I have become a part of the exam syllabus, here in England. (Laughs).

Wonderful! Is it easy to write commercial and jingles for the BBC? Is it creativity under duress?

I have been asked to do advertisements. I do like being given commissions. It stretches your imagination.

Finally, what do you think is going to be the future of poetry?

I think it is going to be more and more relevant. More and more people will see that it is a kind of reserve from the information overload that we have today.

Sachidananda Mohanty is based at the University of Hyderabad.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Features
Previous : The life of a hangman
Next     : Not so unique after all