Poet laureate tackles ‘daunting’ commission from Yorkshire Cancer Research to mark charity’s centenary year
Cancer is a subject the poet laureate Simon Armitage has always shied away from. “I find it very daunting,” he said. “I’ve lost friends and family to cancer.”
But when he was commissioned to write a poem to mark World Cancer Day, he was forced to confront the realities of the disease. “I think I saw part of my task as being slightly demystifying and maybe de-mythologising or de-demonising cancer a little bit to myself,” Armitage said.
He was asked to write the poem, titled The Campaign, by Yorkshire Cancer Research, a charity that funds research and works with people affected by cancer across his native Yorkshire.
“My initial thoughts, as with every commission, is that I can’t do this, don’t really know where to start,” Armitage said. “But that’s the challenge really, and I like the idea that the subject is the sort of puzzle, and the poem is the solution.”
