MORE THAN 130 people heard leading poet Simon Armitage read from his latest anthology in Haworth.

 

They packed into the Old School Room this month  to hear Simon showcase poems from his collection The Unaccompanied.

 

Afterwards the audience were able to visit the nearby Brontë Parsonage Museum to see Mansions in the Sky, an exhibition curated by Simon and focusing on Branwell Brontë.

 

Simon is the museum’s Creative Partner for 2017, a year focusing on the 200th anniversary of Branwell’s birth and following a similar bicentenary last year for Charlotte Brontë’s birth.

 

Rebecca Yorke, Head of Communications and Marketing at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, said it was a privilege to hear Simon Armitage read from The Unaccompanied so soon after its publication.

 

She said: “The audience was clearly captivated by the new poems which give voice to those in our communities who are emotionally or politically isolated: you could have heard a pin drop in the Old School Room.

 

“Many people had travelled a considerable distance to hear Simon read and we were delighted to welcome lots of new faces to the museum.”

 

Simon will talk about the Mansions in the Sky exhibition at an event at West Lane Baptist Centre on May 13.

 

He will relate how his understanding of Branwell developed and changed during the period he took a close look at the Brontë brother’s life and influences.

 

The exhibition includes a dramatic recreation of Branwell’s bedroom and a series of new poems by Armitage, each inspired by an object belonging to Branwell.

 

Simon Armitage, born in West Yorkshire, has published more than a dozen collections of poetry, including Paper Aeroplane and Zoom!.

 

His poems have been on the GCSE and A-level syllabus in the UK for almost two decades.

 

Visit bronte.org.uk for further information and to book places.