Download "Lockdown"

Lockdown by Simon Armitage

Release Date
Wed Jan 01 2020
Performed by
Simon Armitage
About

Simon Armitage, UK poet Laureate from 2019, wrote this poem in response to the Covid-19 quarantine laws. First published in the Guardian in May 2020, it provides a view of the gravity of the pandemic, and the need to remain a cohesive society.

The narrative moves from the outbreak of bubonic plague...

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Lockdown Annotated

And I couldn’t escape the waking dream
of infected fleas

in the warp and weft of soggy cloth
by the tailor’s hearth

in ye olde Eyam.
Then couldn’t un-see

the Boundary Stone,
that cock-eyed dice with its six dark holes,

thimbles brimming with vinegar wine
purging the plagued coins.

Which brought to mind the sorry story
of Emmott Syddall and Rowland Torre,

star-crossed lovers on either side
of the quarantine line

whose wordless courtship spanned the river
till she came no longer.

But slept again,
and dreamt this time

of the exiled yaksha sending word
to his lost wife on a passing cloud,

a cloud that followed an earthly map
of camel trails and cattle tracks,

streams like necklaces,
fan-tailed peacocks, painted elephants,

embroidered bedspreads
of meadows and hedges,

bamboo forests and snow-hatted peaks,
waterfalls, creeks,

the hieroglyphs of wide-winged cranes
and the glistening lotus flower after rain,

the air
hypnotically see-through, rare,

the journey a ponderous one at times, long and slow
but necessarily so.

Lockdown Q&A

Who wrote Lockdown's ?

Lockdown was written by Simon Armitage.

When did Simon Armitage release Lockdown?

Simon Armitage released Lockdown on Wed Jan 01 2020.

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