Simon Armitage is one of the most popular British poets today, admired by both literary readers and high-school students, who are assigned his work in class, for the frankness, humor, and emotional restraint he brings to his subjects. His book Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus the Corduroy Kid, now available on our shores, meditates on youth and age, monsters and underdogs, on the life of nations and the individual heart. His use of colloquial language is both playful and serious, throwing off sparks of higher self-understanding, as below.
You’re Beautiful
because you’re classically trained.
I’m ugly because I associate piano wire with strangulation.
You’re beautiful because you stop to read the cards in
newsagents’ windows about lost cats and missing dogs.
I’m ugly because of what I did to that jellyfish with a lolly
stick and a big stone.
You’re beautiful because for you, politeness is instinctive, not
a marketing campaign.
I’m ugly because desperation is impossible to hide.
Ugly like he is,
Beautiful like hers,
Beautiful like Venus,
Ugly like his,
Beautiful like she is,
Ugly like Mars.
You’re beautiful because you believe in coincidence and the
power of thought.
I’m ugly because I proved God to be a mathematical
impossibility.
You’re beautiful because you prefer home-made soup to the
packet stuff.
I’m ugly because once, at a dinner party, I defended the
aristocracy and wasn’t even drunk.
You’re beautiful because you can’t work the remote control.
I’m ugly because of satellite television and twenty-four-hour
rolling news.
Ugly like he is,
Beautiful like hers,
Beautiful like Venus,
Ugly like his,
Beautiful like she is,
Ugly like Mars.
You’re beautiful because you cry at weddings as well as
funerals.
I’m ugly because I think of children as another species from
a different world.
You’re beautiful because you look great in any colour
including red.
I’m ugly because I think shopping is strictly for the
acquisition of material goods.
You’re beautiful because when you were born, undiscovered
planets lined up to peep over the rim of your cradle and lay
gifts of gravity and light at your miniature feet.
I’m ugly for saying “love at first sight” is another form of
mistaken identity, and that the most human of all responses
is to gloat.
Ugly like he is,
Beautiful like hers,
Beautiful like Venus,
Ugly like his,
Beautiful like she is,
Ugly like Mars.
You’re beautiful because you’ve never seen the inside of a
car-wash.
I’m ugly because I always ask for a receipt.
You’re beautiful for sending a box of shoes to the third
world.
I’m ugly because I remember the telephone numbers of
ex-girlfriends and the year Schubert was born.
You’re beautiful because you sponsored a parrot in a zoo.
I’m ugly because when I sigh it’s like the slow collapse of a
circus tent.
Ugly like he is,
Beautiful like hers,
Beautiful like Venus,
Ugly like his,
Beautiful like she is,
Ugly like Mars.
You’re beautiful because you can point at a man in a uniform
and laugh.
I’m ugly because I was a police informer in a previous life.
You’re beautiful because you drink a litre of water and eat
three pieces of fruit a day.
I’m ugly for taking the line that a meal without meat is a
beautiful woman with one eye.
You’re beautiful because you don’t see love as a competition
and you know how to lose.
I’m ugly because I kissed the FA Cup then held it up to the
crowd.
You’re beautiful because of a single buttercup in the top
buttonhole of your cardigan.
I’m ugly because I said the World’s Strongest Woman was a
muscleman in a dress.
You’re beautiful because you couldn’t live in a lighthouse.
I’m ugly for making hand-shadows in front of the giant bulb,
so when they look up, the captains of vessels in distress see
the ears of a rabbit, or the eye of a fox, or the legs of a
galloping black horse.
Ugly like he is,
Beautiful like hers,
Beautiful like Venus,
Ugly like his,
Beautiful like she is,
Ugly like Mars.
Ugly like he is,
Beautiful like hers,
Beautiful like Venus,
Ugly like his,
Beautiful like she is,
Ugly like Mars.
Read more poems from Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus the Corduroy Kid
More about Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus the Corduroy Kid
Meet Simon Armitage in Seattle, Spokane, or Appleton, Wisconsin this month.
I laughed out loud when I read this yesterday, so today I read it to my Grade 11 English class here in Ottawa. They laughed, too, and one of them said, “Why don’t we read poems like this in school?” “You just did,” I replied, and when I put the name of the book on the chalkboard, some of them wrote it down. Thank you for the moment of literary success, Mr. Armitage!