Killing time. This item is unavailable.Killing time

In the 1000-line poem Killing Time, the manic countdown to a thousand years of history reaches its climax, with the last twelve months spooling past like newsreel. In the Age of Communication, we find a world picked clean by microphone and camera, a world where nothing is sacred, secret or even true.

Simon Armitage, renowned for his 'technique, versatility and passion', rises to the challenge of delineating this supposed milestone in civilization. In Killing Time he proves verse to be the perfect language for taking on the big issues of our time, and poetry a genuine alternative in a world ransacked for knowledge and news.

Simon Armitage was born in West Yorkshire and is Professor of Poetry at the University of Leeds. A recipient of numerous prizes and awards, his collections of poetry include Seeing Stars (2010), The Unaccompanied (2017), Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic (2019) and his acclaimed translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (2007). He writes extensively for television and radio, and is the author of two novels and the non-fiction bestsellers All Points North (1998), Walking Home (2012) and Walking Away (2015). His theatre works include The Last Days of Troy, performed at Shakespeare's Globe in 2014. From 2015 to 2019, he served as Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford, and, in 2018, he was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. Simon Armitage is Poet Laureate.