Blossomise, Simon Armitage

Blossomise, Simon ArmitageNew Hardback 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

revival and atheism

class distinctions and the right to be heard

Alan battles through adversity

A passionate and imaginative exploration of wood - the material that shaped human history

and pave the way to post-war Britain

cultures have clashed

the massive offensive that crushed Hitler's Army Group Centre

Derived from Napoleon's extensive correspondence and his other writings and recorded speech

its increasing hostility towards the West and its development into a thoroughly entrenched dictatorship led by Xi Jinping - one equipped with a sprawling security apparatus and the most sophisticated surveillance system in the world

battling the elements every day

Across seven decades

She describes the personnel who performed these tasks