Moon Country : Further Reports from Iceland

by Simon Armitage, Glyn Maxwell

Two of the brightest young poets of our day follow in the footsteps of W.H. Auden and Louis MacNeice. Auden and MacNeice's Letters from Iceland was more than a brilliant and unconventional travel book; it was one of the great works of the 1930s which defined for its own and later generations the precise nature and feeling of that troubled time.With characteristic boldness, Simon Armitage and Glyn Maxwell, staunch admirers of the two older poets, set off in 1994 to discover what Iceland, with its unique geography and ancient political institutions, might have to say to us now. Their findings, delivered in an appropriate mixture of poetry and prose, reportage and imaginative elaboration, vividly reflect the concerns of our own age, and will instruct and amuse readers in equal measure.

Genres: Poetry, Travel

160 pages, Paperback

First published November 18, 1996

About the author

Simon 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."

Reviews

[Paul]

Recreating Louis MacNeice and WH Auden's trip to Iceland, poets Simon Armitage and Glyn Maxwell travel around Iceland meeting local poets, visiting volcanoes, geysers and waterfalls for inspiration. They recount their trip in prose, poetry and an imagined play which capture the atmosphere and character of this beautiful country.

[Jenny]

Quirky, creative, and funny. I smiled many times over reading about this poetic adventure through Iceland.

[martina silvestre]

la vaca😭😭😭😭 I’d never known death like that before— close by, immense, unexpected. And silent as well, private, just for me. As if the body had been lying there in wait.