Book : Walking Home A Poets Journey - Armitage, Simon

-Titulo Original : Walking Home A Poets Journey

-Fabricante :

Liveright

-Descripcion Original:

Nineteen days, 256 miles, and one renowned poet walking the backbone of England. The wandering poet has always been a feature of our cultural imagination. Odysseus journeys home, his famous flair for storytelling seducing friend and foe. The Romantic poets tramped all over the Lake District searching for inspiration. Now Simon Armitage, with equal parts enthusiasm and trepidation, as well as a wry humor all his own, has taken on Britain’s version of our Appalachian Trail: the Pennine Way. Walking “the backbone of England” by day (accompanied by friends, family, strangers, dogs, the unpredictable English weather, and a backpack full of Mars Bars), each evening he gives a poetry reading in a different village in exchange for a bed. Armitage reflects on the inextricable link between freedom and fear as well as the poet’s place in our bustling world. In Armitage’s own words, “to embark on the walk is to surrender to its lore and submit to its logic, and to take up a challenge against the self.” 29 photographs From Booklist *Starred Review* The Pennines are a mountain range in the north of England. But as poet Armitage points out, mountain is a relative term here since they are not particularly high-the tallest is just under 3,000 feet-and they are often just referred to as fells or hills. Opened in 1965, the Pennine Way was Britain’s first long-distance public pathway, and it has a reputation, according to Armitage, as being the toughest and, hence, the most prized. At 260 or so miles long, it begins in Derbyshire, England, and ends in Kirk Yetholm, Scotland. In the summer of 2010, Armitage decided he would walk the entire length of the trail, but in the wrong direction, from north to south, since most people do the opposite. What’s more, and more importantly, he planned to give poetry readings at every stop, offering poetry as payment like a kind of modern-day troubadour. It is an ingenious idea for a journey and a brilliant idea for a book, which includes some of his poems. In this entertaining jaunt through rural Britain and unpredictable weather, part travel guide and part memoir, Armitage describes his adventures, from collie dogs growling at his heels and mean-looking cows to the unbridled generosity of strangers. A travel gem. --June Sawyers Review [Armitage] displays a sharp appreciation of place, both in its unique contours and its mystery… doling out small stories about the people he walks with or the history of the landscape, the misery of midges or the terror of a deep fog high in the Uplands that flash like sun on chrome. Kirkus ReviewsStarred review. [A]n ingenious idea for a journey and a brilliant idea for a book, which includes some of his poems. In this entertaining jaunt through rural Britain and unpredictable weather, part travel guide and part memoir, Armitage describes his adventures, from collie dogs growling at his heels and “mean-looking cows” to the unbridled generosity of strangers. A travel gem. BooklistPart pilgrimage and part stunt… He writes with self-effacing humor and mixes a few of his own poems with memoir, natural history, and literary reflections… Though Armitage complains at times that the Pennine Way is an ‘unglamorous slog among soggy, lonely moors” …his account is never a slog for the reader. New YorkerNever showy or excitable, his prose has a steady, phlegmatic, gently propulsive rhythm perfectly suited to the matter at hand, his sentences in tune with his feet. Ben Downing, The Wall Street Journal About the Author Simon Armitage is Professor of Poetry at the University of Leeds and from 2015 to 2019 served as the Oxford Professor of Poetry. He has published ten collections of poetry and is the author of four stage plays, over a dozen television films, a libretto, two novels, and three memoirs. His poetry has won numerous awards, including a Gregory Award, a Forward Prize, a Lannan Literary Award, and the Queen’s Gold M