WORDS BY SIMON ARMITAGE
After being named poet laureate of the United Kingdom last year, Simon Armitage announced a new prize for poetry about the environment, citing the climate crisis as an inescapable presence in his life. Here, Armitage paints a portrait of collapse on a more intimate scale with an exclusive new poem for Atmos.
hooked up
to the morphine gun
all you did for a week
was breathe and sleep |
then the breathing stopped |
they reckon the angels demand their share
of the sherry butt, but
what do angels care
for see-through, watery
spiritless air? |
wouldn’t they sooner trawl or dowse
for the booze itself,
for soulful liquids cradled in oak and drowsing for years
under blankets of mould,
bloodgroups chalked on the barrel ends,
the transfusions at work? |
in the hushed bodega it’s never more
than a purple dusk;
on its ward-round
a dragonfly sips
from a weeping cask
This article appears in Volume 03: Flourish/Collapse of Atmos.
Nature is a delicate balance of expansion and collapse, flourish and famine, growth and decay. Have human beings permanently disrupted this cycle, throwing the wheel off its axis, or are we just paving way for the next species to thrive? Is it still possible for us to return to a point of flourishing without collapse? Explore these questions with the Extinction Rebellion, the women warriors of the Amazon, and more of our heroes on the frontlines of conservation. Featuring contributions from Sylvia Earle, Elizabeth L. Cline, Ben Toms, Sam Rock, Stefanie Moshammer, Liliana Merizalde, Kristin-Lee Moolman, Gareth McConnell, Pieter Hugo, Simon Armitage, and more.
