Arts
In a special bonus episode for the 25th anniversary of National Poetry Day 2019, the new Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, a former probation officer, explores this year's all too timely theme: Truth. In these days of empty words and exhausted rhetoric, does poetry open a path to reconciliation of conflicting truths? Can the language of poetry achieve what the language of politics and the judiciary fails to do? And can an interest in the nuances of truth ever become a professional liability? With insight and compassion, Armitage reads and discusses Michael Longley's great 1994 poem “Ceasefire”, a sonnet published in The Irish Times on the eve of the Irish peace process, 25 years ago. Tell Me The Truth About Life: A National Poetry Day Anthology, curated by Cerys Matthews, is published by Michael O’Mara Books. Share poems that speak a truth to you via Twitter using #TellMeTheTruthAboutLife.