‘Keep slaying the dragon inside’: Simon Armitage pens poem for World Cancer Day
Poet laureate tackles ‘daunting’ commission from Yorkshire Cancer Research to mark charity’s centenary yearCancer is a subject the poet laureate Simon Armitage has always shied away from. “I find it very daunting,” he said. “I’ve lost friends and family to cancer.”But when he was...
<p>Poet laureate tackles ‘daunting’ commission from Yorkshire Cancer Research to mark charity’s centenary year</p><p>Cancer is a subject the poet laureate Simon Armitage has always shied away from. “I find it very daunting,” he said. “I’ve lost friends and family to cancer.”</p><p>But when he was commissioned to write a poem to mark World Cancer Day, he was forced to confront the realities of the disease. “I think I saw part of my task as being slightly demystifying and maybe de-mythologising or de-demonising cancer a little bit to myself,” Armitage said.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jan/27/simon-armitage-poem-world-cancer-day">Continue reading...</a>
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