As well as writing poems, Armitage is a well known broadcaster, and has been credited with making poetry into the new rock'n'roll! His down to earth and accessible style combined with his razor sharp wit are qualities which have led to regular appearances on programmes such as Mark Radcliffe's BBC 2 Radio show.

As a broadcaster Armitage is equally at home with discussions about dialect and quirky local phrases as he is with eloquent debates on the nature of poetry. He uses words in a way everybody can understand, and has the ability to engage listeners in discussions about poetry in a playful and appealing way: "I like the idea that you can write poetry that can go anywhere. It can appeal to a professor, a dad, your next door neighbour…It can work on what is essentially a pop music station."

Simon on Mark Radcliffe's BBC Radio 2 show: This has become a second home for Armitage and his poetry

Two very different serious pieces of work are currently occupying Armitage's mind. Simon is translating the Middle English classic poem Sir Gawain And The Green Knight. At the same time he's been commissioned to write a poem about a misericord seat in York Minster for the Poetry Society. This involves a visit to York Minster where the poet crawls between the Minster's wooden seats to examine the carvings in detail to gain inspiration.

He says: "I suppose what I'm looking for is a story with some modern meaning - maybe a parable. It's not good enough to say what's there because it's already there so you don't need to replicate that. I am looking for a significance or meaning that would tie something into my life or other people's lives."

One of the carvings on the misericord seat shows a huntsman dismembering a stag, a similar image to a scene in Sir Gawain And The Green Knight.

The challenge for Simon in his translation is to find a way of making this scene resonate for today's readers. Once again Armitage's local roots come to the fore - he's been consulting a local deer expert about the process of dismembering an animal and the terms used for different parts of the carcass!

Simon compares the translation to doing a "weird crossword puzzle" with many weird terms and words unfamiliar to modern audiences. Words like 'chine' and 'numbles' must be made accessible to the reader even though they've long disappeared from modern dictionaries.

Inspiration in the pub: "It's a good place to sit and daydream!"

Writing is a labour of love for Simon Armitage, and he likens composing poetry to day dreaming: "Writing a poem for me is very much about composition, it's not something that I do sat down at a table with pen and paper or a word processor or whatever. It's something I do in my head, it's something that I do in the bath, it's something that I do in the car - it makes me a very dangerous driver, actually! Poetry is a kind of day dreaming, you can hold most of a poem in your head at any one point and be working on it throughout the day."

Armitage even sometimes gets inspiration from a trip to his local pub, where he's been going since he was a young man: "It's a good place to sit quietly and daydream," he reflects over a pint of beer.

For Simon, writing is a highly intuitive process that involves getting inside other people's heads: "The main skill is what it will look like in someone else's mind. It's often a picture, a visual image, that you're trying to describe. The real trick is to put yourself in the position of the reader and put yourself in their point of view."

The resulting poetry is powerful and engaging, as in Zoom! and The Tyre, both inspired by Armitage's childhood and the countryside close to where he grew up.

Extract from Zoom!:
"It begins as a house, an end terrace
in this case
but it will not stop there. Soon it is
an avenue
which cambers arrogantly past the Mechanics' Institute,
turns left
at the main road without even looking
and quickly it is
a town with all four major clearing banks,
a daily paper
and a football team pushing for promotion."
© Simon Armitage

Final verse - extract from 'The Tyre':
"Being more in tune with the feel of things
than science and facts, we knew that the tyre
had travelled too fast for its size and mass,
and broken through some barrier of speed,
outrun the act of being driven, steered,
and at that moment gone beyond itself
towards some other sphere, and disappeared."
© Simon Armitage

Yorkshire Sculpture Park: Another source of inspiration for the Huddersfield poet

Another source of inspiration for Armitage is the grandeur of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park on the Bretton Estate. With its staggering blend of sculpture and nature, he believes the park is a marriage of both art and the landscape - it has inspired a number of his poems: "It manages to combine international brilliance with local pride."

The same could be said of Armitage himself, who has drawn on his local roots while making the source of his inspiration resonate for both an international audience. It's a real tribute to him that he is capable of taking the pulse of the times without sacrificing his artistic integrity.

Long may he continue to live in West Yorkshire and be inspired by its people and scenery!

Simon Armitage appeared on a BBC TV Special on Wednesday 8th June on BBC 1 as part of the major new series A Picture Of Britain.

Simon was born in 1963 in Huddersfield.

He studied Geography at Portsmouth Polytechnic.

Armitage worked with young offenders before gaining a postgraduate qualification in social work at Manchester University.

He began working as a probation officer in Oldham in 1988.

Simon has also worked as a shelf-stacker, DJ and lathe operator.

He has worked extensively in film, radio and television.

His poetry books include 'Zoom!' (1989), 'Kid' (1992), and 'CloudCuckooLand' (1997).

He won an Eric Gregory Award in 1988, was named 'Most Promising Young Poet' at the inaugural Forward Poetry Prize in 1992.

Armitage wrote and presented 'Xanadu' (1992), a 'poem film for television'.

He wrote and narrated a number of BBC productions, including a film about the American poet Weldon Kees called 'Saturday Night', and a documentary about Leeds titled 'Drinking For England'.

Did you know that Simon Armitage was the poet for the Millennium Dome?

Published 'All Points North' (1998), a collection of essays about the North of England.

Simon Armitage was appointed poet for the Millennium Dome.

He won an Ivor Novello award for his lyrics for the documentary 'Feltham Sings'.

When he jumped genres, critics bemoaned his first novel 'Little Green Man' (2001) for its lack of poeticism. Simon said he "just wanted to tell a story", but some saw this tale of adult men trapped in childhood games as a "piece of low-key, frill-free lad-lit".

Simon Armitage has taught at the University of Leeds and the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop, and currently teaches at Manchester Metropolitan University.

With Robert Crawford he edited 'The Penguin Anthology of Poetry from Britain and Ireland Since 1945'.

Other anthologies include 'Short and Sweet - 101 Very Short Poems', and a selection of Ted Hughes' poetry.

Armitage has been shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize, TS Eliot Prize and Forward Prize.

'The Shout', a book of new and selected poems was published in the US in April 2005 by Harcourt.