The large village of Marsden, West Yorkshire not only was home to Simon Armitage's beginnings as writer, but has continued as a vital presence throughout his works: from his very first pamphlet, Human Geography (1988), to his forthcoming new collection New Cemetery (scheduled for 2022). This edition gathers all the Marsden poems together to create a 'poetry of place' edition, which will offer a new way of appraising Simon's body of work, as well as celebrating this overlooked region that has meant so much to him personally. Simon will be announcing a decade-long tour of libraries in the UK as a central strand of his laureateship: every spring he'll be reading in a handful of libraries across the country, and would like to feature this collection as part of it, donating a copy to each library.
