Book of Matches
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 Cover of first edition | |
| Author | Simon Armitage |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Poetry |
| Publisher | Faber and Faber |
Publication date | 11 October 1993 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Paperback |
| Pages | 64 |
| ISBN | 978-0-571-16982-5 |
| 821/.914 20 | |
| LC Class | PR6051.R564 B66 1993 |
| Preceded by | Kid |
| Followed by | Dead Sea Poems |
Book of Matches is a poetry book written by Simon Armitage, first published in 1993 by Faber and Faber. It was admired by critics and has been used in English literature examinations.
Simon Armitage is an English poet, playwright and novelist. He was appointed as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom in 2019.[1] 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.[2][3] At the start of his career, and at the time Book of Matches was published, he was working as a probation officer.[4]
Book
Publication history
Book of Matches was published in paperback by Faber and Faber in 1993.[5] They reprinted it in 2001.[6]
Contents
The book is written in three sections, the first (Book of Matches) containing 30 fourteen-line poems or sonnets. Each is meant to be read within the time it would take for a match to be lit and burn out, as Armitage states in the first poem, "My party piece:"[4]
I strike, then from the moment when the matchstick
conjures up its light, to when the brightness moves
beyond its means, and dies, I say the story
of my life —
— from Book of Matches, "My party piece:"[7]
The second, Becoming of Age, contains 14 titled poems, including "Penelope", alluding to the wife who waits for the return of Odysseus to Ithaca, and "The Lost Letter of the Late Jud Fry", alluding to the dirty-fingernailed[4] farmhand character in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma!.[4]
The third, Reading the Banns, contains 12 untitled poems based on a wedding theme, titled for the banns of marriage; critics have detected echoes of W. H. Auden in its lines.[4]
