Walking Home: A Poet''s Journey

The wandering poet has always been a feature of our cultural imagination. Odysseus journeys home, his famous flair for storytelling seducing friend and foe. The Romantic poets tramped all over the Lake District searching for inspiration. Now Simon Armitage, with equal parts enthusiasm and trepidation, as well as a wry humor all his own, has taken on Britains version of our Appalachian Trail: the Pennine Way. Walking the backbone of England by day (accompanied by friends, family, strangers, dogs, the unpredictable English weather, and a backpack full of Mars Bars), each evening he gives a poetry reading in a different village in exchange for a bed. Armitage reflects on the inextricable link between freedom and fear as well as the poets place in our bustling world. In Armitages own words, to embark on the walk is to surrender to its lore and submit to its logic, and to take up a challenge against the self. See more