Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

When I reflect on my life, I think first of the fenland soil by my birthplace.  My parents were practical people – more concerned with doing than shaping words, and from my father I learned to listen to the land, to snipe drumming, to fish rising. Today, when I write, I begin from a place of silence. Rarely, words arrive in spate; more often, they are like wigeon, sporadic, straggling.
        My outer life has been ordinary enough: a degree in English and
humanities, then many low-paid years working in archaeology, nature conservation, second-hand books; I now work in Merton College, where history is almost as tangible as fire. My inner life has run another river: love, and loss, persistent – at times mystical – searching, and a creativity that has been slow to arrive. Except for some rough lines made when 20 – lost (along with my confidence) when my belongings were stolen in Cambridge – I did not write until my mid-30s (winter 1995/6) when bereavement catalysed my words.

     I have loved poetry since my teens, beginning with Emily Bronte, and later, a poet both local and dear to me, John Clare. My poems won modest prizes, and my first pamphlet was published by Acumen. Since then, I have appeared in anthologies such as Four Caves of the Heart (Second Light) and Earth Songs (Green Books). My first full collection was published by Shoestring Press, edited by John Lucas, last autumn. It is called At the Edge of Light; I am still working at that edge.