Write Out Loud (Reviews and Writing)

Having just attended a reading by Simon Armitage in Grasmere, I immediately bought the main book from which he was reading – Never Good with Horses. I’ve liked his poetry for a long while and, as an English teacher, I’ve been grateful for his work many a time. His poems are direct, accessible, deep and, very often, quite funny. He’s a great gateway into poetry for young, uninterested minds.

I was a little disappointed then by this collection. It was an interesting idea: collecting lyrics for published songs or ones that never made it to the recording studio. This should work. The Beatles’ collected lyrics have been available for decades and rightly regarded as excellent poetry in their own right. Lyrics are, arguably, the poetry of the modern times.

What became clear is that at the reading Armitage read the best stuff. And it is very good on second (silent reading). Poems like Redwings, Lockdown, I’m Not Really a Waitress and others are really strong – full of that depth and humour I like so much about our Poet Laureate. But other stuff was much less effective. To be fair, it did help to read the notes at the end which gave rather necessary explanations to some of the more enigmatic poems. I wish I’d realised there were notes before I got to them at the end. A word to the wise – stick a finger in the notes page and be ready to check if the poem you’re reading happens to be mentioned.

But there’s nothing bad here and, when talking of ‘best’ stuff, Armitage does set the bar really high. All the poems are good, all well written. Some of the ones he didn’t read are actually brilliant. For instance, there’s one which is clearly a kind of rap and I loved it (which is odd as I don’t like rap as a musical work). It is just that compared to his outstanding ones, generally they don’t come close. I’m used to reading his poems and going ‘wow’ at the end. Many of these I just found myself turning the page without comment.

The problem is that Armitage has been around so long and had such prolific output (at least eighteen books of poetry just from scanning the list in this book) that we’re so used to reading his best works in collections or used online in some way. You could spend many, many readings just going through his top drawer material and never read a dud. But every book has a selection of whatever he’s just written and so you get a more full range of the kind of things he likes. Not all of it works so well.

So my verdict is a little harsh but I think that fair enough for a man who has enjoyed great success for decades and will, I am sure, continue to enjoy success with this latest tome. There is something to be said for reading collected works rather than individual books, and with that in mind I’m now reading one of his. I’ll let you know how it goes.

My verdict:

Social Entrepreneur, educationalist, bestselling author and journalist, D K Powell is the author of the bestselling collection of literary short stories “The Old Man on the Beach“. His first book, ‘Sonali’ is a photo-memoir journal of life in Bangladesh and has been highly praised by the Bangladeshi diaspora worldwide. Students learning the Bengali language have also valued the English/Bengali translations on every page. His third book is ‘Try not to Laugh’ and is a guide to memorising, revising and passing exams for students.

Both ‘The Old Man on the Beach’ and ‘Sonali’ are available on Amazon for kindle and paperback. Published by Shopno Sriti Media. The novel,’The Pukur’, was published by Histria Books in 2022.

D K Powell is available to speak at events (see his TEDx talk here) and can be contacted at dkpowell.contact@gmail.com. Alternatively, he is available for one-to-one mentoring and runs a course on the psychology of writing. Listen to his life story in interview with the BBC here.

Ken writes for a number of publications around the world. Past reviewer for Paste magazine, The Doughnut, E2D and United Airways and Lancashire Life magazine. Currently reviews for Northern Arts Review. His reviews have been read more than 7.9 million times.

Get a free trial and 20% off Shortform by clicking here. Shortform is a brilliant tool and comes with my highest recommendation.

Social Entrepreneur, educationalist, bestselling author and journalist, D K Powell is the author of the bestselling collection of literary short stories “The Old Man on the Beach“. His first book, ‘Sonali’ is a photo-memoir journal of life in Bangladesh and has been highly praised by the Bangladeshi diaspora worldwide. Students learning the Bengali language have also valued the English/Bengali translations on every page. His third book is ‘Try not to Laugh’ and is a guide to memorising, revising and passing exams for students.

Both ‘The Old Man on the Beach’ and ‘Sonali’ are available on Amazon for kindle and paperback. Published by Shopno Sriti Media. The novel,’The Pukur’, was published by Histria Books in 2022.

D K Powell is available to speak at events (see his TEDx talk here) and can be contacted at dkpowell.contact@gmail.com. Alternatively, he is available for one-to-one mentoring and runs a course on the psychology of writing. Listen to his life story in interview with the BBC here.

Ken writes for a number of publications around the world. Past reviewer for Paste magazine, The Doughnut, E2D and United Airways and Lancashire Life magazine. Currently reviews for Northern Arts Review. His reviews have been read more than 7.9 million times.

Get a free trial and 20% off Shortform by clicking here. Shortform is a brilliant tool and comes with my highest recommendation.