Armitage is the Poet Laureate of Great Britain and the author of a number of poetry books and memoirs, among them “Walking Home: A Poet’s Journey” which I read and thoroughly enjoyed a few years ago.  In it, he describes his three week walk along the Pennine Way, 256 miles of rugged hiking in the Lake District and Yorkshire.  Each night he stopped in an inn, read his poetry, and used the take from the evening to buy his dinner and lodging.  A fine book for walkers and poetry-lovers as well.

In this slim volume, Armitage offers up 21 poems including 11 haikus that describe the joy attending the change of seasons from winter to spring as well as noting the melancholy from the inevitable passing of this brief season.  His poems are accompanied by lovely woodcuts by Angela Harding depicting birds, blossoms, trees, leaves, and both rural and urban settings.

Armitage undertook this project on behalf of the National Trust which sought to “create an annual celebration of blossom designed to bear witness to the arrival of spring and raise awareness around the role of nature in our lives.”  Traveling around the country to blossom sites, from south to north as spring emerged, Armitage captured the spirit of both the rebirth and the death that are springtime blossoms.  Here’s one of his haikus:  “Constellations bloom/in orchards of April skies./The stars blossomise.”

This is a fine book to read on a blue sky, warming day in London as we enjoy the daffodils, cherry blossoms, and magnolias in this our first spring before returning to Cambridge for our second and then moving on to Vermont for our third.  My favorite season is now named, “Blossomise”.