Pace of life is unhelpful' Armitage issues plea to slow down and reflect

Armitage issues plea to slow down and reflect

- Steven Morris

Simon Armitage's new poems celebrate the extraordinary homes of the creatures tucked away within the verdant nooks and crannies of the Lost Gardens of Heligan.

But during a walk around the sub-tropical garden on the south coast of Cornwall, the poet laureate explained how the pieces could also be taken as a plea for humans to slow down, think about the damage we are causing to the natural world and to do something about it.

"My first impulse was that I needed to write something about gardens and flowers," he said. "But I was looking for another dimension, something a bit more secretive. It occurred to me that this location provides habitat for a lot of species of British wildlife and I think the unspoken theme is the fact that the animals I'm talking about are under stress."