Simon Armitage on writing about cancer: 'It’s an enormous subject and there’s a responsibility with it’

His voice is one of the most recognisable in the rich chorus of British poetry, with more than two dozen collections to his name and a deserved reputation for representing through prose lives that are not his own.

But Poet Laureate Simon Armitage admits he didn’t quite know where to start when he took on a commission from the charity Yorkshire Cancer Research (YCR), tasked with drawing on the experiences of those affected by cancer for a piece to mark World Cancer Day and the organisation’s centenary year.

"I knew ultimately it was a good cause,” muses Huddersfield-born Armitage. “It was something that I didn’t know a great deal about, both the charity itself and cancer, despite the fact pretty much everybody I know has had a loss through cancer or knows somebody who has been a cancer patient. I was thinking of it as a challenge, something that was quite daunting but that tends to be the work that I’m more interested in because you can’t really anticipate the outcome. Also, it’s regional, of this county and on that level alone, it was something I wanted to get involved in.”

"If you broke me in half, you’d see a white rose all the way through,” he adds.

Armitage’s poem, The Campaign, pays tribute to a century of progress in cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment, while highlighting the work that still needs to be done. Before writing, he visited the YCR centre in Harrogate where he met with people across the region including families who have lost loved ones, medical researchers, and those living with incurable cancer.

“I didn’t really know what to expect that day but it was very emotional,” he reflects. “There were some really heart-breaking testimonies, very moving. I suppose I should have anticipated that. Poetry tends to hone in on emotions so it was very charged. But there were other things happening in the room that day as well. There was quite a bit of laughter, a lot of irony, a lot of talk about support, networks, community.

"That was very strong, the way people were looking after each other and the charity providing an environment in which those communities can exist. I went home that evening thinking I don’t really know how to write about this. It’s an enormous subject and a difficult subject and there’s a responsibility and an accountability that comes with it.”

Armitage found his entry point whilst researching the charity’s history. In January 1926, at the Queen’s Hotel in Leeds, YCR made its first public fundraising appeal. The charity’s then Honorary Secretary, Sir Harold Mackintosh, issued a rallying call across Yorkshire to “deliver the attack upon cancer, the great enemy of mankind, and become the new Saint George in the work of slaying the dragon”.

There it was. A metaphor with which Armitage could play. He ran with the idea of cancer as an enemy – one which is being tackled with ingenuity, research and painstaking discovery. It’s also a dragon of the mind, he says, demanding a sense of Yorkshire bloody-mindedness to overcome it as a threat to daily life.

“I finish on this idea of Yorkshiring on,” explains Armitage. “The character of Yorkshire is being on the front foot, speaking as you find, rolling your sleeves up and getting on with it, facing challenges head on. It’s that sort of Yorkshireness I was talking about...I don’t know whether Yorkshiring is in the dictionary yet but it might be next year.”

The poem was shared for the first time earlier this month at an event at the University of Leeds, where Armitage is Professor of Poetry and where many cancer breakthroughs have been funded by YCR.

It highlights the tenacity and resilience of researchers and supporters who have driven such breakthroughs and explores the ways in which money has been raised to fund pioneering projects and how the disease can continue to be confronted through community, generosity, creativity, and fun.

Whilst writing, Armitage imagined a reader who had just been diagnosed with cancer. “I was trying to say something really positive to them...Science has brought about more hope for people. There are better outcomes these days than there used to be and that is a reason to be hopeful.

"I think the poem is hopeful, it’s optimistic, I think it’s full of heart. I didn’t want to write a miserable piece, I don’t think that would have been any good for anybody. I wanted it to sound like a bit of a rallying cry, something to focus around.”

In producing the piece, Armitage tried to step into the shoes of others with lived experience of cancer. Like much of his previous work, around topics such as alcoholism, mental health issues and PTSD, it was about giving voice to people and their experiences. “It requires a similar kind of empathy and a certain level of responsibility,” Armitage reflects.

“I used to be a probation officer when it was more of a social work role and it’s not a million miles from being back in that world...I think I’m a good mimic and I think that’s what a lot of art is about, the mimicry of real life.”

He sees his piece as being a kind of manifesto for YCR going forward, a new way of telling the story around cancer. “Poetry tends to be short sharp shock, it’s an intense use of language, hopefully memorable language and if it works well it should play music in the ear and it should catch the eye,” he says.

"This (poem) is a way of trying to do something slightly differently. I think metaphor is a very powerful tool in communication because people don’t just understand the comparison, they experience it. You feel what’s being communicated rather than just thinking about it.”

Armitage believes that poetry is one of the country’s greatest art forms and when he took up post as Poet Laureate in 2019, he spoke of how “the combination of considered thought and crafted language is more relevant and vital than ever”. Since then he’s been spearheading the creation of The National Poetry Centre in Leeds, which is set to become the UK's first dedicated national home for the art.

It’s one of his key focuses for the year ahead, alongside touring with his band LYR (Land Yacht Regatta) and the next leg of his decade-long tour of UK libraries.

"I’m hoping some time this year we are going to start the physical renovation of the (National Poetry Centre) building,” he says. “After a period of not being absolutely confident it would happen, just very ambitious and hopeful, my feeling is it’s inevitable now.

“Poetry has never really had a home in this country which I find astonishing given it’s one of our greatest art forms. We have a National Gallery, National Theatre, British Museum, British Library but poetry hasn’t really had a headquarters. And that’s what I’m trying to change.”

- Discover The Campaign and the voices of people across Yorkshire who inspired the poem at yorkshirecancerresearch.org.uk/the-campaign-simon-armitage.

- For live tour dates, visit simonarmitage.com