Seeing Stars by Simon Armitage

Seeing Stars Reviews

• 
  Atri

  When you ask me what time it is,
  it's purple. And when
  the alarm goes off in a morning it's a
  sort of metallic, minty
  green...
  
  There must always be a small
  corner of rapture,
  otherwise what's the point? And all
  the while I'm tapping
  my feet to the colours, going at it
  with brushes or blades
  until the world looks for all the
  world like it sounds.
• 
  Steven Godin

  
  The English Astronaut
  
  He splashed down in rough seas off Spurn Point.
  I watched through a coin-op telescope jammed
  with a lollipop stick as a trawler fished him out
  of the waves and ferried him back to Mission
  Control on a trading estate near the Humber Bridge.
  He spoke with a mild voice: yes, it was good to be
  home; he'd missed his wife, the kids, couldn't wait
  for a shave and a hot bath. 'Are there any more
  questions?' No, there were not.
  
  I followed him in his Honda Accord to a Little
  Chef on the A1, took the table opposite, watched
  him order the all-day breakfast and a pot of tea.
  'You need to go outside to do that,' said the
  waitress when he lit a cigarette. He read the paper,
  started the crossword, poked at the black pudding
  with his fork. Then he stared through the window
  for long unbroken minutes at a time, but only at the
  busy road, never the sky. And his face was not the
  moon. And his hands were not the hands of a man
  who had held between finger and thumb the blue
  planet, and lifted it up to his watchmaker's eye.
  
• 
  Rosemary Standeven

  A wonderfully surreal book – more Magritte than Dali, as the scenes have an anchor in the every-day (except “Knowing What We Know” which starts with an elf). Then, they veer Monty Python-like into the absurd. Each vignette is written in lyrical prose.
  The author invents alternative (and mostly unbelievable) histories for famous people, such as Denis Bergkamp, James Cameron, Ringo Star … For example:
  

  “I hadn’t meant to go grave robbing with Richard Dawkins but he can be very persuasive”.

  
  In other chapters he is a pharmacist, astronaut, a tattooist, a barber … And finally, he is Simon Armitage in disguise on a ‘Simon Armitage’ tour of his home town, where his own history is reinvented. Sometimes, his persona is unknown (but no less absurd in its actions)
  

  “At the annual Conference of Advanced Criminal Psychology, Dr Amsterdam and myself skipped the afternoon seminar on Offending Behaviours Within Gated Communities and went into town to go nicking stuff”

  
  There were hundreds of little passages, whose imagery leaves you reeling such as:
  

  “a few moments later their knees touched under the wooden table. For him it was like a parachute opening. For her it was like something involving an artichoke”

  
  My absolute favourite chapter was the synaesthetic, stream-of-conciousness “The Overtones” – sheer poetry in prose clothing.
  Highly recommended.
  
• 
  Ashley Marilynne Wong

  3.5 stars. I enjoyed this quirky and intriguing collection of short narrative poems though for some reason, I felt distracted after reading 40% of the book and struggled to stay focused. I nevertheless managed to finish reading this great poetry collection. Glad I did because Armitage demonstrated his skills in poetry and storytelling.
• 
  Nicky

  Seeing Stars is a book of what I would call prose-poetry. I've got an odd relationship with Armitage's poetry: I didn't like it, then I found a couple of his poems that I liked, and then I read more and more...
  
  I have a similar sort of relationship with this collection. Prose-poetry is my thing, as a writer, so I was very interested to see what his work was like. Some of them fascinated, and there were some amazing lines, and some things that made me smile -- and the story about the couple who hang a curtain across the room will stick with me, I think -- but for the most part, I wasn't too impressed. Microfiction/prose-poetry is a very tricky art, which is the problem.
• 
  April

  Poems? No. Microtales, quirky entertaining unexpected amusing bizarre ones, beautifully written. I will definitely be back.
• 
  Lew Watts

  I have loved Simon Armitage's poetry ever since reading his collection
  Zoom, and I read
  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in wonder at the ease with which he was able to retain the percussive alliteration and stress pattern throughout his translation. But
  Seeing Stars was a revelation: sure, the humor and eccentric takes on everyday events are still there, but a book of prose poems was not what I expected. Some are quirky in the extreme, many contain fabulous lines and ideas. If you find this book, just read the first poem, The Christening, for a taste—it starts "I am a sperm whale..." and ends with the glorious phrase, "Stuff comes blurting out."
  'Nuff said.
• 
  Ralph Palm

  It's been a while since I talked about poetry, so I've lost the vocabulary. But I liked these quite a bit:
  -The Christening
  -My Difference
  -The Experience
  -The Last Panda
  -The Delegates
  -The Overtones
  Also, the poems seemed to be written in free verse so free it looked like prose. I may have missed something. I would point out, however, that this is not a criticism. 'Poetry has to be, you know, poetry' is not a tautology, but a viciously circular argument.
  
  Now I gotta go familiarize myself with some more poetry a) written in the last 50 years b) by people I didn't study in school.
  
• 
  WCN Book Club

  There is a scene in Molière’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme in which Monsieur Jourdain, an uneducated but wealthy tradesman determined to improve his social standing, returns from a lesson with his philosophy master utterly entranced with a new discovery. He has, he pompously informs his wife, spent his life speaking prose! Prose! His more grounded wife counters that the only thing she has heard him speak recently is “total rubbish” but he departs more self-satisfied than ever. It is a hilarious scene in which Molière ruthlessly mocks Jordaine’s pretentious predilection for fancy notions over substance.
  
  I start this review with this anecdote because one of the responses I hear most often in relation to Seeing Stars, is that it “isn’t really poetry, is it.” Such nonsense! As if form were more important than content! As if Jourdaine could become a gentleman simply by knowing the form in which he speaks. Whether Seeing Stars is conveyed in a form that more closely resembles poetry or prose is largely irrelevant. What matters is whether it has an effect on the individual reading it, and Seeing Stars is, for me, a collection of rather wonderful and moving vignettes that its author, or rather one of his collage of narrators, handily refers to as ‘story-poems’. These story-poems combine narrative drive and plot twists with awareness of language, pacing, and the impact of an odd transgression mid-line. In this hybrid form, Armitage excels.
  
  There is a performance quality to the work. Armitage debuted many of these pieces at readings for a couple of years before publishing Seeing Stars and that gently lulling Yorkshire accent is apparent even when reading on the page. If there is a focus, it is on the substantial over the stylish, the meaningful over the meaningless. Armitage has a sneer for those “critics, sponsors, trustees, rich benefactors and famous names”, for whom art is canapés, champagne and glamorous receptions. Seeing Stars is their antithesis: an intimate and memorable chorus that suggests that often the most meaningful things in life are the least dramatic.
  
  The title itself, and the works contained, conjure connotations of awe-struck wonder at the majesty of life, of punch-drunk shock at things gone wrong, of the flat disappointment that comes with encountering a celebrity who turns out to be just like everyone else, who cannot transform everyday monotony into something spectacular.
  
  Seeing Stars is gritty, surreal, tender, and often hilarious. In ‘Last Words’ a woman who has been mortally wounded by a spider makes a last phone call and finds herself conversing with a similarly dying man stranded at sea. In ‘The Christening’ a sperm whale sites ‘finders keepers’ as justification for the British Crown continuing to own the Elgin Marbles and in ‘Seeing Stars’ an injudicious remark by a pharmacist to his customer results in a nasty altercation that leaves him reeling. One of the more poignant passages comes in ‘The English Astronaut’ when the narrator follows an astronaut to a Little Chef on the A1 and watches him stare out of the window at the busy road, never at the sky.
  “…And his face was not the
  moon. And his hands were not the hands of a man
  who had held between finger and thumb the blue
  planet, and lifted it up to his watchmaker’s eye.”
  
  In many ways, Seeing Stars most closely reminds me of a collection of Murakami short stories, where the fantastical and the mundane exist together, overlapping and interpreting each other and emotional states are elucidated through grandiose experiences. However, where Seeing Stars differs is in the liberal use of satire and farce. These reverential experiences are never allowed to become too heartfelt before Armitage’s wicked, pen cuts them down a peg or two. There are many laugh-out-loud lines, and some exemplary first lines:
  
  “I hadn’t meant to go grave robbing with Richard Dawkins
  but he can be very persuasive.”
  ‘The Experience’
  
  “I fear for the long-term commercial viability of the new
  Christian cheese shop in our neighbourhood.”
  ‘Cheeses of Nazareth’
  
  How could you not wish to read on after these? Armitage casts an absurd eye over various aspects of life that might otherwise become too heartfelt. In ‘The Delegates’, he lambastes consumerist waste, in ‘Bringing It All Back Home’ he turns the cult of celebrity on himself, recalling Googling his own name and imagining participating in the Simon Armitage Trail, a guided-tour of his life where the turnout is ‘woundingly low’. Family interactions, Thatcherism and the perception of Yorkshire in the wider world all intwine.
  
  This is an entertainment rich, content conscious collection that works on many levels and provides a satisfying reading experience. In substance it is full of ideas and humour and wry glances into the sort of poignant, absurd, contradictory lives we live and have always lived.
  
• 
  Ben Thurley

  These sly and surreal microstories and prose poems range from the hilarious to the sinister. It's difficult to give a sense of the range of monologues and parabolic tales and shaggy dog stories that populate this collection of 39 stories.
  
  But, in recommendation of the whole, allow me to nominate one that took my breath away. "I'll Be There to Love and Comfort You", no more than a page-and-a-half in length, opens with the understated wit of:

  The couple next door were testing the structural fabric of the house with their difference of opinion."

  and, via the barest evocation of a hidden tragedy in the narrator's life and the inexplicable irruption of some other reality, ends with uncanny and poetic dread and hope intermingled:

  Then slowly but slowly I opened my fist to the unknown. And out of the void, slowly but slowly it came: the pulsing starfish of a child's hand, swimming and swimming and coming to settle on my upturned palm.

  Shivers!
• 
  Matt

  The critics were preaching to the converted (if not the evangelical) when they recommended this book to me; however, I have to say it fulfills all of my expectations of Simon Armitage and then some.
  
  It's a collection of prose-poems, allegories, parables and (very) short stories. The narrative always carries his slightly anti-earnest tone, but like all great comedy Armitage always keeps a little pathos waiting in the wings.
  
  I'd recommend this on the basis of his stunning smilies alone. For example: "Back in the house they argued like flamethrowers" (from '15:30 by the Elephant House')
  
  Need I say more?
• 
  Marc Latham

  Good book with some nice poetry and funny stories.
  
  Yorkshire's second man of poetry shows expert use of joining together apparently unrelated topics to create unique stories, and also some nice extended phrases; which show the kind of skill that's made him a star poet.
  
  Nice phrases like : 'The girl looked up at Ricky with a face like a silver coin at the bottom of a deep well caught by the momentary glimmer of a footman's lantern.'
  
  In the above phrase I particularly liked the addition of 'the bottom of a deep well' to the silver coin; and 'momentary glimmer' to the footman's lantern: deepening their imagery and impact.
  
  
• 
  Emmy

  Simon Armitage writes in a beautiful, quirky, delicious style of prose-poetry that is refreshingly unique and original. His writing calls to mind the lilting poetry of Paul Muldoon, as well as the magic and mystery of Neil Gaiman and Jasper Fforde. This was a beautiful collection, my first Armitage book, and without a doubt, NOT my last :) I fully intend to read more of his works. Armitage is a brilliant poet.
• 
  Judith Huang

  Quirky, slightly morose tellings of incidents in the style of James Tate, but a British version. These prose poems take you on bite sized journeys. However, I still prefer Tate's oddball sense of humor to Armitage. Bringing it all back home is the standout poem for me and I can see why he sequenced it second to last. Perhaps it is because the ironical distance in that one also comes with some revelation of himself as he imagines a poetic tour of his hometown?
• 
  Sebastián

  Like a box of tiny stories; this has just became one of my favourite books of poetry. Not all of them make sense to me, but I find that after discussing these with others I end up understanding a lot more. Conversational, funny, silly, dry, and heart-rendingly tragic, often all in the same poem. "Stuff comes blurting out."
• 
  Timothy Urban

  Are these Poems? Very short stories? However you might describe this collection of punchy but concise vignettes, I found them very enjoyable, sad, funny, sly and a bit of a peek into the British psyche. You get a story form I've not seen done anywhere else (perhaps John Hegley? Less successfully.) I enjoyed every single one and wanted more the moment I finished.
• 
  Rachel

  My only experience with Armitage previously had been at school (GCSE anthology anyone?). 15 years or so later and I stumble across shooting stars and I was blown away. A dazzling collection of allegorical stories and absurdities that piece together to form a sometimes scathing commentary on the individual. Wonderful stuff.
• 
  Eva

  An incredibly funny and clever collection of poems from Armitage. Highlights include: 'Hop in, Dennis' - an account of giving Dennis Bergkamp a lift from Calais to Luxembourg; 'The Practical Way to Heaven'; and 'Cheeses of Nazareth' about a Christian Cheese shop.
• 
  Dave

  I was misled that this is poetry. Shame. My perception was therefore tainted.
  
  However, I regained my senses, discerned that I was reading phenomenal short tales, imaginatively conceived and deftly delivered in an intellectual manner, and all was well with the world!
  
  Read it... NOW!
  
  
• 
  Paul

  Poetic short tales, or whatever you wish to call this I loved this book, and couldn't stop reading to see where on earth the next one was going to go, with loads of memorable characters
• 
  Steve Gillway

  Wacky stuff. Some of the short stories/poems really stick in your mind. It is something about the incongruity or the sting in the tale( crap joke) Others just don't.
  
• 
  James Smith

  Something a little different from Armitage: a collection of prose poems. But vintage Armitage, too, as songs of the working class north. Will be returning to this again very soon.
• 
  Sonja Trbojevic

  Wonderful! Love them all, especially "Bringing It All Back Home". That's Marsden for you!
• 
  Twan

  So now I know what 'prose-poetry' is. It's just stories.
• 
  Greg Meyer

  Absurd, dreamlike poems that make bizarre sense and engender a sense of sorrow.
• 
  Dayna Smith

  A strange, yet entertaining, book of free verse prose poems. Those adverse to poetry, and a strange sense of humor, might find this collection worth reading.
• 
  Gabriel Clarke

  Or perhaps 4 for craft and 3 for the extent things stuck. All journeys round the minds of poets are curated but this felt more artful than most.
• 
  Charlie Crook

  I feel strange giving Armitage a star rating, since I've met him through university and found him incredibly charismatic and knowledgable. He's full of talent and some of his early collections are absolutely brilliant, while his translation of Sir Gawain is one of my favourite long poems of all time (alongside Pushkin's Eugene Onegin). I have no doubt that as far as prose poems go, Armitage achieved what he was aiming for here. However, I have to say, I prefer his other collections that I've read (Zoom, Book of Matches, The Unaccompanied).
• 
  Tori Taylor

  I absolutely loved this. Incredible, couldn’t fault it
• 
  Henry Johnson

  Brilliant tales, so original