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11
Oct 2021
Simon Armitage summed up the power of poetry when he read a selection of his works to a packed audience in Ripon on Saturday.
The Poet Laureate, whose poems brought laughter and sadness to 200 people at Ripon Grammar School, said words on a page take on a different character when spoken.
Armitage, who was the star attraction at the fourth Ripon Poetry Festival, described verse as having 'a kind of primitive magic".
The West Yorkshire-born and bred poet told the Stray Ferret he was delighted to perform at the four-day festival, where he brought some of his own primitive magic and talked about his local connections.
He said:
Lockdown also gave Armitage, who was appointed to the 10-year office of Poet Laureate in May 2019, the opportunity to focus on his work.
He said:
Saturday evening's audience was given a taste of the epic poem, which focuses on the quarrelsome conversation between the two birds, as they show their mutual dislike.
The newly-published work featured recently on BBC Radio 4's hit podcast, The Poet Laureate Has Gone to His Shed.
There were also readings from Magnetic Field: The Marsden Poems, a collection that provides a guided tour in verse of the village where Armitage grew up.
Testimony to the growing popularity of poetry was the fact that this year's festival anthology, The Other Side of the Looking Glass, contains 92 poems covering a broad spectrum of styles and based on a wide range of subjects, including life in lockdown and the environment.
Mr Croft pointed out:
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