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Xanadu
- GenresPoetry
Paperback
First published April 1, 1992
About the author
Simon Armitage
154 books394 followersSimon Armitage, whose The Shout was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, has published ten volumes of poetry and has received numerous honors for his work. He was appointed UK Poet Laureate in 2019
Armitage's poetry collections include Book of Matches (1993) and The Dead Sea Poems (1995). He has written two novels, Little Green Man (2001) and The White Stuff (2004), as well as All Points North (1998), a collection of essays on the north of England. He has produced a dramatised version of Homer's Odyssey and a collection of poetry entitled Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus The Corduroy Kid (which was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize), both of which were published in July 2006. Many of Armitage's poems appear in the AQA (Assessment and Qualifications Alliance) GCSE syllabus for English Literature in the United Kingdom. These include "Homecoming", "November", "Kid", "Hitcher", and a selection of poems from Book of Matches, most notably of these "Mother any distance...". His writing is characterised by a dry Yorkshire wit combined with "an accessible, realist style and critical seriousness."
Armitage's poetry collections include Book of Matches (1993) and The Dead Sea Poems (1995). He has written two novels, Little Green Man (2001) and The White Stuff (2004), as well as All Points North (1998), a collection of essays on the north of England. He has produced a dramatised version of Homer's Odyssey and a collection of poetry entitled Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus The Corduroy Kid (which was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize), both of which were published in July 2006. Many of Armitage's poems appear in the AQA (Assessment and Qualifications Alliance) GCSE syllabus for English Literature in the United Kingdom. These include "Homecoming", "November", "Kid", "Hitcher", and a selection of poems from Book of Matches, most notably of these "Mother any distance...". His writing is characterised by a dry Yorkshire wit combined with "an accessible, realist style and critical seriousness."
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 7, 2026
Xanadu is a 1992 poetry book by Simon Armitage that came out of a 1991 BBC2 poetry film project about the Ashfield Valley Estate in Rochdale.
Armitage at this point was still a probation officer and part-time poet and Ashfield Valley was part of his first posting, which one of the untitled poems talks about. The Ashfield Valley Estate consisted of 26 blocks, which allowed them to be named after a place in Britain from A to Z (with Exford being the X block.) So D was Dunblane etc. At the point the film was made they were emptying out the estate in preparation for demolition and land sales so there were lots of boarded up or broken windows and it has the look of a place that utterly lacks charm.
There's one caretaker left who is an old Hungarian man who fled Hungary in 1956. He comes in and out of the film as do a couple of other remaining tenants. It's very much a film about the fag end of Thatcherite Britain.
The collection includes still photos from the film. The film runs the poems in a different order, breaks them up a bit, alters them whilst the book includes more poems. You can watch the film in two parts on YouTube where someone kindly uploaded them from a slightly dodgy VHS. The sound quality is bad at the beginning but then whoever is recording it notices and turns the volume up.
The poetry is excellent, the language straightforward but playful. There's an elegiac quality to some of it mourning a place - even if it is an ugly place - passing into memory. I really enjoyed it.
Armitage at this point was still a probation officer and part-time poet and Ashfield Valley was part of his first posting, which one of the untitled poems talks about. The Ashfield Valley Estate consisted of 26 blocks, which allowed them to be named after a place in Britain from A to Z (with Exford being the X block.) So D was Dunblane etc. At the point the film was made they were emptying out the estate in preparation for demolition and land sales so there were lots of boarded up or broken windows and it has the look of a place that utterly lacks charm.
There's one caretaker left who is an old Hungarian man who fled Hungary in 1956. He comes in and out of the film as do a couple of other remaining tenants. It's very much a film about the fag end of Thatcherite Britain.
The collection includes still photos from the film. The film runs the poems in a different order, breaks them up a bit, alters them whilst the book includes more poems. You can watch the film in two parts on YouTube where someone kindly uploaded them from a slightly dodgy VHS. The sound quality is bad at the beginning but then whoever is recording it notices and turns the volume up.
The poetry is excellent, the language straightforward but playful. There's an elegiac quality to some of it mourning a place - even if it is an ugly place - passing into memory. I really enjoyed it.
August 31, 2024
The final day of #thesealeychallenge.
This is an unusual ‘poem film’ that is, the poem is the script for a film he made for the BBC about an estate of 26 blocks of flats in Rochdale that he visited as a probation officer. Written in 1997, it is, again, a source of historical and cultural references made beautifully poetic and down-to-earth; references like “And all day Sunday, out came the people / like bees from the lion on the tin of treacle”
About spending time in enclosed spaces, he quotes “… this famous proverb / I’ve just invented:
the Jack-in-the-box
who discovered the truth
stood up for himself
and hit the roof.”
This is a poignant comment on society, as relevant, in many ways, now as it was then, a story told in a remarkable way. As poetry this is what I love to read and he remains one of my favourite poets.
This is an unusual ‘poem film’ that is, the poem is the script for a film he made for the BBC about an estate of 26 blocks of flats in Rochdale that he visited as a probation officer. Written in 1997, it is, again, a source of historical and cultural references made beautifully poetic and down-to-earth; references like “And all day Sunday, out came the people / like bees from the lion on the tin of treacle”
About spending time in enclosed spaces, he quotes “… this famous proverb / I’ve just invented:
the Jack-in-the-box
who discovered the truth
stood up for himself
and hit the roof.”
This is a poignant comment on society, as relevant, in many ways, now as it was then, a story told in a remarkable way. As poetry this is what I love to read and he remains one of my favourite poets.
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August 31, 2024Well now I have Feelings about apartments that probably haven't existed in 20 years, in a country I probably won't ever get the chance to visit.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews