Book description
As the title implies, Simon Armitage's flesh-and-blood account of
numerous personal journeys reads like a private encyclopaedia of
emotion and health. Vivid and engaged, the poems range from the
rainforests of South America to the deserts of Western Australia, but
are set against the ultimate and most intimate of all landscapes, the
human body. Equally, the body politic comes into question, through
subtle enquiries into Englishness and the idea of home.
Simon Armitage was born in West Yorkshire in 1963. In 1992 he was
winner of one of the first Forward Prizes, and a year later was the
Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. Among his collections of poetry
are Kid, Book of Matches, The Universal Home Doctor, Tyrannosaurus Rex
versus The Corduroy Kid and Seeing Stars. His acclaimed translation of
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was published in 2007.
