Poet Laureate Simon Armitage has opened up his garden shed for a new series of BBC podcasts.
Armitage invites guests including Elbow singer Guy Garvey and sculptor Antony Gormley to the shed at the bottom of his garden for ‘The Poet Laureate has gone to his Shed’ series.
The visitors also help Armitage, who was born in Huddersfield and now lives in the Holme Valley, with his latest project, a translation of the medieval English poem The Owl and the Nightingale.
“It’s not David Cameron’s designer shepherd’s hut – it is a very rudimentary 6” by 8” shed,” Armitage told the i newspaper. “It’s where I go to get away from distractions, like the phone, the internet and the Test Match score, and write in isolation.”
Armitage, who has penned eight commissioned verses since accepting the Laureate role last May, said he hoped Sir David Attenborough would join him in the shed.
“I met him when I wrote a poem for the launch of the British Antarctic Survey’s new icebreaker RRS Sir David Attenborough. The theme of The Owl and the Nightingale is the natural world so he would be terrific.”
The podcast series will be broadcast on BBC Sounds from March 11th and at a later date on Radio 4.
