Magnetic Field: The Marsden Poems
Magnetic Field: The Marsden Poems is a 2020 collection of poems by the English poet Simon Armitage. All 50 of the poems, written throughout his career, relate to places in his home village of Marsden, West Yorkshire. The book contains maps of the village, showing where each poem is situated. The book has been welcomed by critics, who have noted Armitage's skill and accessibility, and the way he has brought Marsden to life on the page. Context. Author. Simon Armitage is an English poet, playwright and novelist. He was appointed as Poet Laureate of  the United Kingdom in 2019. He is professor of poetry at the University of Leeds and became Oxford Professor of Poetry when he was elected to the four-year part-time appointment from 2015 to 2019. He was born and raised in Marsden, West Yorkshire, and still lives nearby. Motivation. Armitage explains in the book's introduction that when he returned to Marsden with a geography degree, "I started looking out of [my bedroom] window again, and out of the large picture window in the living room with its wide-angle view of Marsden – and I was ready to write ... the village became the drawing board or board game on which I could practise my poetics and play out my perspectives." He considers his motivations at that time, such as fabricating an identity, stating that whatever they were, they were "at a subconscious level". He notes that a different account would be needed to explain why he continued to write Marsden poems "on and off – for another three decades". He writes that he found he had been using Marsden to chart "the effects of the recession [from 2008], and the austerity that followed, and a growing sense of marginalisation in  what was supposed to be an age of increased communication and connectedness." Book. Publication history. "Magnetic Field: The Marsden Poems" was published in hardback on 15 March 2020 by Faber and Faber in London. They brought out a paperback edition in 2021. Synopsis. The book contains 50 poems about Armitage's home village of Marsden, written at different times throughout his career. The poems are arranged roughly chronologically, not by date of writing but by the date to which each poem applies, something Armitage states could not be precise, as some apply to a range of dates. The endpapers are  maps of parts of Marsden at differing scales, keyed to the poems by page numbers in red attached to each poem's location, such as a house, a garden, a reservoir, or a railway bridge. Recordings. A BBC producer invited Armitage to read some of the poems "in situ" in their exact Marsden locations. They made recordings including of "Emergency" in the boarded-up fire station; "Harmonium" in St Bartholomew's Church; "Leaves on the Line" at the railway station; and "On Marsden Moor" on the moor around the village. Reception. The poet Jonathan Humble, in "The Yorkshire Times", calls  the book "a love letter to a muse that was there for the poet at the beginning and has continued to be a source of inspiration through to the present day." He notes that Armitage calls Marsden "genuinely unique … as a liminal, transcendent and transgressive location", and agrees it is an interesting place with a thriving cultural scene. He admires the book's production as "a lovely thing to behold", with its "handy maps", should the reader wish to walk what he predicts will become the "Armitage Trail", and the cover photograph of Marsden including the author's terrace house , and a shiny central band "illustrating (I believe) the magnetic attraction he feels towards the village." He writes that "The Marsden Poet" remains as Samuel Laycock, commemorated in stone in the village's park, noting that "this seems to rankle the Poet Laureate (and with some justification", as Laycock left Marsden when he was 11 years old. Humble concludes that Armitage "surely deserves some physical recognition in the village as, with understated skill and marvellous accessibility, [he] continues to put Marsden on the map." The critic and editor Kate Simpson, in "Poetry School", describes "Magnetic Field" as "a complex and  alluring interpretation of our connection to both interior and exterior spaces: the grass is near touchable; the evening breeze tangible; the 'horizon ablaze' ("Emergency"). The fields await our return." In her view, the Marsden poems "are like cardinal directions, pointing back to the landscape and inviting readers to gather in a geographical amphitheatre."