Simon Armitage and the Journey Home

Ledbury town centre

Gabrielle and I drove for three hours to listen and see Simon Armitage take us with him on his journey home down the Penine Way, at The Ledbury Poetry Festival.

Simon Armitage Walking Home

12.45pm – 1.45pm Community Hall £8 In this often hilarious account of travelling as a ‘modern troubadour’ without a penny in his pocket, Simon Armitage walks the infamous and gruelling Pennine Way from Kirk Yetholm to the Yorkshire village where he was born, paying his way with poetry.

Hilarious! Well, there were a few laughs.

Simon Armitage shares a photograph

Gabrielle and I met each other out walking, and now we love to walk together; by the coast, along the Cotswold Scarp, or round our local secluded Evenlode Valley. So I hoped this talk would please us both, combining poetry with a walking journey and photographs of the landscape.

see: http://nickowensnatureblog.blogspot.co.uk/

The largish hall in Ledbury was absolutely packed. I had no idea how influential this Professor of poetry must be.

He read one amazing poem, and one good one, neither of which was written during this journey. These alone did not make our journey across Oxfordshire and Worcestershire into Herefordshire worthwhile. However, it was good to revisit the land of my schooldays and the place where one starts the great Ledbury run, back over the hills into Malvern College, made famous by C.S. Lewis in "Surprised by Joy."

I had another reason to go, however. I myself had started out on this Pennine Way walk, but going north from Edale on to Kinder Scout and over Soldiers Knob to the high Pennines.

It was right after my final exams and I was mentally exhausted. I lasted two days before catching pneumonia.
He had to have done better than me.

The other thing that drew my attention was his playing the troubador, reciting for his supper and board in every place he stopped on the way. That I found an inspiring idea. It was the most entertaining and enjoyable aspect of his talk too. I take my hat off to that.

BUT

I was hoping for poems, poems about the walking, poems about the landscape, poems about the emotional journey towards the childhood home.

There weren't any!

As a poem-picture artist I was also hoping for poem-pictures; and there were photographs.

However, a twelve year old could have made better images with a box brownie, and there were no poems to go with them. Why did he think we would want to see them?

What we were given was a story of a very ordinary man, with very ordinary concerns about his frail back, his socks, his boots, his backpack, and yes, at least something prosaic to say about the travelling and the landscape.

He was more self indulgent than entertaining, more navel gazing than meditative.

Gabrielle said she could have told as good a tale about her walks through several continents, and I don't doubt her.

I have discovered myself how hard it is to think properly when you are on a long distance walk. Your mind is always being dragged down to the stones under your feet. It was not surprising that the same happened to Simon Armitage. What was odd was that he thought he could pack a hall to hear him talk about.

What was even odder was that he could fill a hall to tell us about it.

If you like poetry and pictures, if you want poetry set in a landscape, if you want wise thoughts, buy "On the other side" by Tina Negus. She does it beautifully.

But if you want to hear a prosaic tale of a very ordinary traveller, go to this talk by Simon Armitage.

At least here was an upside to our journey. I bought the book of Bird Poetry, which Armitage has co-edited. That is a treasure to bring back home.