He is the most prolific modern day bard of West Yorkshire.

And now Marsden’s rock n roll poet, Simon Armitage, is celebrating 25 years of drawing inspiration from a life spent in the rugged and unrelenting landscapes of the area in a new poetry collection.

Poems about moors and the women of Merrie England coffee shops to his most renowned works such as Kid and Mother Any Distance, which captured the imaginations of countless GCSE students, are just some of the 102 texts chosen by the millenium poet, whose first book was published in 1989.

Taking six months to put together, Paper Aeroplane chronicles the breadth of his career from his first unpublished work to his upcoming release.

Talking from his home in Meltham, Simon said: “I’d been putting off selecting poems for six months but then one day I just stood in front of a photocopier and started going through my work.

“There are lots of reasons why the poems made it into the book-some had sentimental value, such as those written right at the start of my career, taking me right back to the roots of it all.

“Other ones, which I include in public readings, were chosen for the efficiency of having them all in one place- so now instead of having to carry around 10 books I can take one, which makes travelling a lot easier!”

The process of sifting through book after book has given him time to reflect on the development of his work.

Simon Armitage
Simon Armitage

Simon, 51, said: “It’s hard to see a change in your own work, however, I’d like to think that my ideas have matured and there is the contrast of writing from a different perspective-instead of from that of a kid the poems now come from my position as a husband and dad.

A personally emotive collection, it also includes previews of his next new poetry collection, The Unoccupied, the first he has written in around five years.

Simon said: “It’s going to be quite a big book because the poems have just been piling up due to my other writing projects.

“I’d say one of the main themes is a sense of home and family that is explored within it.”

The notion of home is one that has stayed with Simon since he first picked up his pen whilst looking out of his house onto Marsden’s back streets when he was a teenager.

“I started out writing looking out my bedroom window and don’t think that template has really changed.

“I’ve written around 50 about Marsden-I realised when I was giving someone a tour of the area that I’ve written a poem about most things in the village and I think subconsciously I don’t want to rest until I’ve written about everything there.

“But indirectly I think the area permeates most of my poetry, whether through the attitudes expressed or my experiences here.”

The front cover for Simon Armitage's latest collection, Paper Aeroplane

This year has also seen Simon unveil a giant public poem outside the University of Sheffield, called In Praise of Air, which was printed on pollutant-absorbing material.

Simon, who is the university’s professor of poetry, said: “We were trying to find a way to work together and the science department were working on the material so it seemed like the obvious collaboration.

“It actually ripped on Tuesday, which I guess is quite apt considering the topic-we may try repair it or raffle parts of it off.”

Amidst his poetry he is also working on a BBC Radio 4 play about Théodore Géricault’s painting, The Raft of Medusa, which featured on the front cover of the Pogues album Rum, Sodomy and the Lash and is in talks with the National Theatre about turning it into a play.

His next project to come out will be a film around poetry and World War One called The Great War - An Elegy, which will be on BBC 2 next month.