Simon Armitage CBE

Simon Armitage CBE is a multi award-winning poet, professor of poetry, musician and playwright. In 2020 he was awarded a CBE for for services to literature and in 2019 was appointed Poet Laureate, a position he will hold for 10 years.

Until 1994, Simon Armitage worked as a Probation Officer and in his post-graduate studies his MA looked at the effects of television violence on young offenders.

His first poetry collection Zoom! was published in 1989, five years before Simon left the probation service. Since then he has published more than 20 other collections, with many based on his home town in West Yorkshire.

Simon is the former professor of poetry at Oxford and in 2017 was appointed as the first Professor of Poetry at the University of Leeds where he has been a lecturer. He has also lectured at the University of Manchester and the University of Iowa.

Simon has received numerous awards for his work including the Sunday Times Young Author of the Year, the Ivor Novello, the 2018 Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.

In addition to poetry, Simon Armitage has also made literary, history and travel programmes for the BBC and Channel 4.

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More About Simon Armitage CBE

Simon Armitage discovered poetry when studying English literature O-level but said his experience of school was brutal, with peer pressure not to work or do homework. Following school, Simon went to Portsmouth Polytechnic, where he did a degree in geography.

Simon then followed his dad into the probation service, doing a master’s at the University of Manchester. His thesis was on the effect video violence has on young offenders. He was now working as a probation officer by day and a poet by night.

In 1994, Simon left the Probation Service to commit to and focus on his poetry.

Simon Armitage CBE | TV

Simon has contributed to and written on many television productions and, with director Brian Hill, pioneered the docu-musical format which resulted in cult films like Drinking for England and Song Birds. Song Birds was screened at the Sun Dance Film Festival in 2006. He received an Ivor Novello Award for his song-lyrics in the Channel 4 film Feltham Sings, which also won a BAFTA.

In 2009 and 2010, Armitage presented films for BBC4 on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and on Arthurian literature.

Simon wrote A Brief Period of Rejoicing, a 30 minute film-poem commissioned by Channel 5 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of VE Day. This piece was performed by Sheila Hancock. He wrote Out Of The Blue for Channel 5 to commemorate the fifth anniversary of 9/11.

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Simon Armitage CBE | Radio

The Poet Laureate has Gone to his Shed, was recorded just before the 2020 coronavirus lockdown and featured Simon talking to guests about life, language and music in his shed. The series was then broadcast during the lockdown.

In 2011 Simon wrote the BBC Radio 4 docu-drama Black Roses: The Killing of Sophie Lancaster, about the murder of Sophie Lancaster and with the full co-operation of the Sophie Lancaster Foundation.

Black Roses was awarded BBC Radio Best Speech Programme of 2011 and short-listed for the Ted Hughes Award that year. In 2012, it opened as a stage play at Manchester’s Royal Exchange and has since been produced as a BBC film, directed by Sue Roberts.

Simon Armitage | Theatre

Simon’s theatre plays include Mister Heracles, a version of the Euripides play The Madness of Heracles; Jerusalem, commissioned by West Yorkshire Playhouse; The Last Days of Troy, commissioned by Manchester Royal Exchange, and The Odyssey: Missing Presumed Dead, a 2015 English Touring Theatre and Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse co-production.

Simon Armitage also wrote the script for the puppet opera Hansel and Gretel (A Nightmare in Eight Parts) which toured with Goldfield Productions in 2018. The opera’s narrative poem was published in 2019 by Design for Today with illustrations by Clive-Hick-Jenkins, who designed the puppets.

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Simon Armitage | Awards and Accolades

Simon has been received awards for his literary work for the past two decades, with the long list of recognition including:

1988 Eric Gregory Award
1989 Zoom! made a Poetry Book Society Choice
1992 Forward Poetry Prize for Kid
1993 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year
1994 Lannan Award
1995 Forward Poetry Prize for The Dead Sea Poems
1998 Yorkshire Post Book of the Year for All Points North
2003 BAFTA winner[131]
2003 Ivor Novello Award for song-writing
2004 Fellow of Royal Society for Literature
2005 Spoken Word Award (Gold) for The Odyssey
2006 Royal Television Society Documentary Award for Out of the Blue
2008 The Not Dead (C4, Century Films) Mental Health in the Media Documentary Film Winner2010 Seeing Stars made a Poetry Book Society Choice
2010 Keats-Shelley Prize for Poetry
2010 Appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List, for services to literature
2012 The Death of King Arthur made Poetry Book Society Choice
2012 Hay Festival Medal for Poetry
2012 T S Eliot Prize, shortlist, The Death of King Arthur
2015 Oxford professor of poetry (4-year appointment)
2017 PEN America Poetry in Translation Prize for Pearl: A New Verse Translation
2018 Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry “for his body of work”
2019 Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, appointed for 10 years