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Walking Home by Simon Armitage

by
February 2013, no. 348

Walking Home by Simon Armitage

Faber and Faber (Allen & Unwin), $32.99 hb,285 pp, 9780571249886

Walking Home by Simon Armitage

by
February 2013, no. 348

W ordsworth – poet–walker par excellence – had the best legs in the business. As his friend Thomas de Quincy noted: ‘Undoubtedly they had been serviceable legs beyond the average standard of requisition. For I calculate, upon good data, that with these identical legs Wordsworth must have traversed a distance of 185,000 English miles.’ In contrast, Simon Armitage’s legs, by his own admission, generally ‘do very little other than dangle under a desk’ or propel him from the multi-storey car park to the railway ticket office. ‘Even if I’m writing about the Sahara or the Antarctic,’ he confesses, ‘I’m usually doing it in a chair, in a room, behind double glazing.’

Bronwyn Lea reviews 'Walking Home' by Simon Armitage

Walking Home

by Simon Armitage

Faber and Faber (Allen & Unwin), $32.99 hb,285 pp, 9780571249886

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