Human Geography by Simon Armitage - 40th anniversary signed limited edition paperback

A fortieth-anniversary, signed limited edition of Poet Laureate Simon Armitage’s first ever poetry pamphlet.

Human Geography was published in 1986 when Armitage was just twenty-three years old. It was a time for him of experiment and potential – ‘when I felt like a nobody but could dream about being anybody’. That spirit of possibility, openness and youthful optimism is captured in the poems themselves.

Forty years on and with a new, retrospective introduction, this  very special signed edition returns us to the starting point of Simon Armitage’s extraordinary writing life.

The poet himself wrote on his instagram in May 2026, "Forty years ago this year I published my first ever poetry collection - Human Geography - with Smith/Doorstop Books in Huddersfield. It was an exercise in optimism and experiment but opened the door to a lifetime of writing - I’m forever grateful to my editor, teacher and friend Peter Sansom for his support and encouragement back then. And for his blessing for this limited edition reissue to go ahead through Faber. There’s been a bit of tidying up - word processing hadn’t really arrived in West Yorkshire in 1986, and the pamphlet contained some bizarre typos and inexplicable punctuation. And I couldn’t resist amending one or two phrases in line with four decades of (hopefully) poetic development, but otherwise it’s a fairly faithful reproduction, including the cow-cud green of the cover. And I’ve added one new poem - Painting The Lighthouse - about the excitement and insanity of wanting to become a poet."