Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus the Corduroy Kid

by Simon Armitage

From one of the most important British poets at work today comes a brilliant new collection that meditates on human battles past and present, on youth and age, on monsters and underdogs, on the life of nations and the individual heart.

In Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus the Corduroy Kid , we meet a writer who speaks naturally, and with frankness and restraint, for his culture. Armitage witnesses the pathos of women at work in the mock-Tudor Merrie England coffeehouses and gives us a backstage take on the world of Oliver Twist and the Artful Dodger. He makes a gift to the reader of the sympathy and misery and grit buried in his nation’s collective in the distant battle depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry and in the daily lives and petty crimes of ordinary people. In poems that are sometimes lyrical, sometimes brash and comic, and full of living voices, the extraordinary and the mythic grow out of the ordinary, and figures of diminishment and tragedy shine forth as mysterious, uncelebrated exemplars. Armitage tells us ruefully that “the future was a beautiful place, once,” and with a steady eye out for the odd mystery or joyous scrap of experience, examines our complex present instead.

AFTER THE HURRICANE

Some storm that was, to shoulder-charge the wall
in my old man’s back yard and knock it flat.
But the greenhouse is sound, the chapel of glass
we glazed one morning. We glazed with morning.
And so is the hut. And so is the shed.

We sit in the ruins and drink. He smokes.
Back when, we would have built that wall again.
But today it’s enough to drink and smoke
amongst mortar and bricks, here at the empire’s end.

Genres: Poetry, Contemporary

80 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

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

[Leisha Wharfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite parts are excerpts of his translations of Homer's Odyssey and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. He smooths out & modulates the classics, lending them an easy contemporary diction. I could read his translations all day. Some of his poetic tricks throw me off (a poem of 40 extremely short stanzas, each numbered with Roman numerals), but I love his drive to get it right (5 poems in a row, each named "Sympathy") and his playful experiments ("Hand-Washing Technique--Government Guidelines").

Yes, I recommend him. I am going to get my hands on his translations.

[Santino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant poetry and possibly the first book I have ever required a mirror in order to read it in full.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Metered and rhymed just so.
Not so much that your chest aches from being too-closed in, but just enough so you feel put in a different place.
These poems are almost too tidy for me, with their sometimes very obvious beginnings, middles, and ends. Then again, lots happens inside that frame -- some very untidy things, such as the pain of sons parting from fathers, and the pitch-perfect blood and guts of mythic and ancient war.

(I do have a question -- the refrain in "You're Beautiful" -- why is it there? Is this meant to be sung, in which case we'd want that familiar return, but since it's written, we have only the naked tedium of it?)

Easily likeable stanzas (from "The Six Comeuppances"):

For every learning curve, a plateau phase.
For every dish of the day, a sell-by date.
A backlash to every latest craze.

A riptide to every seventh wave.
For every moment of truth, an afterthought.
For every miracle cure, an antidote.

[Holly Raymond · Rating 3 out of 5]

I heard Armitage at Dodge in 2008 and loved his energy. I'd been keeping an eye out for a used copy of this book to come my way since then. I think maybe I built him up too much in the act of anticipation, because this book felt oddly slack, as a whole. Too many poems that are small glib gestures and not much more, but what works really does work very well.

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favourite poets! Armitage can make literature out of almost anything.

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Northerner, this is your stop. This longhouse
of echoing echoes and sooted glass,
this goth pigeon hanger, this diesel roost
is the end of the line. Brace and be brisk,
commoner, carry your heart like an egg
on a spoon, be fleet through the concourse, primed
for that point in time when the world goes bust,
when the unattended holdall or case
unloads its cache of fanaticised heat.

Here's you after the fact, found by torchlight,
being-less, heaped, boned of all thought and sense.
The camera can barely look. Or maybe,
just maybe, you live. Here's you on the News,
shirtless, minus a limb, exiting smoke
to a backdrop of red melt, onto streets
paved with gilt, begging a junkie for help.

[Ann Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked The Shout better all around (the title poem is wonderful). This book is fascinating for its dialect, which I admit has me confused in a few places, particularly the Sympathy poems--though I really like those poems. The other thing that makes this collection less "amazing" than The Shout is that it seems rather UNcollected...a bit disjointed, little of this, little of that...

Overall, though, I like his work. It shows (as does some other poets' work, I am thinking of Kim Addonizio and such)that form, rhyme, meter can be quite irregular, edgy, and up-to-date. It's all about diction, maybe.

[Phillip · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this collection more than I did. Some of the poems I really enjoyed. Some I saw the humor, wit, and cleverness. Others didn't really do anything for me. And many of the poems that didn't really work for me were clustered near the beginning of the book, so it didn't start out on the strongest foot for me.

[MrGibson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this book of poetry up today, read the first lines of a poem opened up at random and laughed. Buying it then become a delightful formality.

[John]

My favorite poet. Period. Check out any and all of his collections you can get your hands on. Poetry's answer to Billy Bragg.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I occasionally read poetry when I see a slim volume on the new books shelf at the library. This fit the pattern. I liked it.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Smart, but not too smart. Best when pushing form out of ordinary, as in the title poem.

[Debbie Mortimer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not usually a reader of poetry but the title drew me towards this book.

Enjoyable collection.

[BoltonEnglish · Rating 3 out of 5]

'You're Beautiful' sticks in my head. Writing that understands beauty beyond the proscribed.

[Jonathan Gill · Rating 4 out of 5]

His best collection imho

[Adrian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another slice of thoughtful Northern masculinity. My favourite line in this one: "The planets queue up to take the piss - especially the big ones made of inhospitable gas."

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

After discovering Simon Armitage's modern English translations of early literary classics (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Iliad, etc) I'm glad to finally get a chance to read his original work in verse.

As with so many volumes of poetry, Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus the Corduroy Kid is a mixed bag, but there are a couple of real gems in these pages, particularly "You're Beautiful" and "To the Women of the Merrie England Coffee Houses, Huddersfield". The latter demonstrates Armitage's ability to take a seemingly light subject and handle it with genuine feeling and with humor.

[Em · Rating 4 out of 5]

Coming from reading his absolutely fantastic translation of Sir Gawain, I was pleasantly surprised to see it here again! There’s so many small hints towards a life I have never come close to living, and I find myself drawn towards his translations. I would love to read his prose. I think it would really shine. Armitage has such a unique voice and I’m excited to dive into more of his work.

Some that stood out to me:
- To the Women of the Merrie England Coffee Houses, Huddersfield
- Sympathy (All of them)
- from The Bayeux Tapestry
- Poetry
- from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- The Stake-Out
- Learning by Rote

[Muhammad Salim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice to read verse that relaxes the mind. A fine book to chill with; the poems are varied and innovative. Images and ideas galore ... Simon Armitage's various dimensions come through; there's cleverness and samples of engaging story-telling. We meet the sloth, Greek intrigue, voices that ring fine ... Glad I read this one, many years after Armitage's Ulysses.

[Emmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simon Armitage is a wonderful poet, but I'll be honest, half the time, I don't know what he's talking about. I like how it sounds, though, and I love to read his work aloud. I just don't completely understand what's going on.

I guess I don't have to.

[Lucy Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bit in love with Simon Armitage. His precision of language...

[Bethan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wry and at times clever but little heart

[Theo Smaller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not much more to say than that Simon Armitage can do no wrong. He is consistently amazing with his poetry, but who cares what I think because he is literally the poet laureate!!

This collection made me want to read his rendition of the Odyssey, so that will show up here at some point I am sure.