New Cemetery by Simon Armitage
Poetry Book Society Recommendation Autumn 2025
PRE-ORDER
Published 25th September 2025. Available for pre-order.
The Poet Laureate makes peace with the dead in this highly imaginative and wide-ranging new collection. The conversion of a local natural beauty spot into a municipal graveyard is the starting point for New Cemetery. From regular walks around the boundary near his moorland home in West Yorkshire, Simon Armitage chronicles the extraordinary transformation of landscape both outer and inner. These luminous and wry poems "composed in short-lined tercets "reflect the changing world: one of unstable weather patterns and unpredictable news events, all observed across a few acres of Pennine upland. As phases of lockdown come and go and the cemetery fills up with new 'residents', Armitage charts personal losses of his own, often retreating to his garden shed to navigate blank paper with pen and ink. Encompassing lyrical revelations and everyday vignettes alongside apocalyptic visions and imagined conversations with the deceased, these pages draw us into a parallel neighbourhood of remembrance and celebration. 'Armitage's poetic world is instantly recognisable, always inclusive.' New Statesman 'Among Armitage's talents has always been his ability to set up easy-going conversational rhythms, then use them to power through difficult material.' Guardian 'Our best living poet.' Evening Standard
The Poet Laureate makes peace with the dead in this highly imaginative and wide-ranging new collection. The conversion of a local natural beauty spot into a municipal graveyard is the starting point for New Cemetery. From regular walks around the boundary near his moorland home in West Yorkshire, Simon Armitage chronicles the extraordinary transformation of landscape both outer and inner. These luminous and wry poems "composed in short-lined tercets "reflect the changing world: one of unstable weather patterns and unpredictable news events, all observed across a few acres of Pennine upland. As phases of lockdown come and go and the cemetery fills up with new 'residents', Armitage charts personal losses of his own, often retreating to his garden shed to navigate blank paper with pen and ink. Encompassing lyrical revelations and everyday vignettes alongside apocalyptic visions and imagined conversations with the deceased, these pages draw us into a parallel neighbourhood of remembrance and celebration. 'Armitage's poetic world is instantly recognisable, always inclusive.' New Statesman 'Among Armitage's talents has always been his ability to set up easy-going conversational rhythms, then use them to power through difficult material.' Guardian 'Our best living poet.' Evening Standard
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