Writing a List Poem

Enjoy our simple step by step Create guides devised by professional artists and foragers for Friends Around the Table. Absolutely no experience is necessary, these activities are accessible for most people and can be undertaken in your own time.

Each guide welcomes you to explore food and nature in new and exciting ways to bring some relaxing and creative activity to your day. Once you have had a go, why not share the skills you have learned with a neighbor, friend or family member!

There are many different ways to tell a story. Simon Armitage is an amazing storyteller. Often in his poems he finds new and exciting ways to tell a story.

Look at the poem below. He uses a list of objects to tell a mysterious story. The list is a list of all the things found on a dead body. Look carefully at the poem. What can you deduce from the list?

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About his person by Simon Armitage

Five pounds fifty in change, exactly,
a library card on its date of expiry.

A postcard stamped,
unwritten, but franked,

a pocket size diary slashed with a pencil
from March twenty-fourth to the first of April.

A brace of keys for a mortise lock,
an analogue watch, self winding, stopped.

A final demand
in his own hand,

a rolled up note of explanation
planted there like a spray carnation

but beheaded, in his fist.
A shopping list.

A giveaway photograph stashed in his wallet,
a keepsake banked in the heart of a locket.

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Simon Armitage created a story out of a list of objects and now you will too! But instead of focussing on an individual we are going to focus on the place where we live.