An Evening with Simon Armitage

Simon Armitage, Poet Laureate, brings new perspectives and energy to a timeless poetic subject.

Blossomise celebrates the ecstatic arrival of spring blossom just as it acknowledges, too, its melancholy disappearance. Full of spirited leaps of imagination and language, the twenty-one poems hopscotch between intense momentary haikus that honour the Japanese traditions of the blossom festival and stand-alone lyrical pieces that take in the stylistic tones of ballads, hymns, songs, prayers and nursery rhymes. From a crashed Ford Capri wrapped around the immovable trunk of a cherry tree, to saplings flourishing among skyscrapers and urban sprawl, the fizz and froth of the annual blossom display is explored here both as an exuberant emblem of the natural world and a nervous marker of our vulnerable climate.

Angela Harding responds to the poems in wonderful accompanying illustrations.

Published in collaboration with the National Trust as part of their annual Blossom programme and campaign.

Simon Armitage is Poet Laureate and Professor of Poetry at the University of Leeds. He has received numerous prizes and awards for his writing, including the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, 2018.

Angela Harding is a fine art painter and illustrator inspired by British birds, nature and countryside.