Simon Armitage Freedom of the City of London honour celebrates poetry and public life
Simon Armitage has been awarded the Freedom of the City of London, recognising a career that has brought poetry closer to the public and built bridges between the arts and everyday life. The honour, one of the City’s oldest traditions, was presented during a ceremony held for the first time at the Barbican Centre’s Conservatory, a fittingly contemporary setting for a poet who has always found new ways to make old forms resonate.
Since being appointed Poet Laureate in 2019, Simon Armitage has added to an already remarkable body of work, from early collections like Zoom! to recent publications such as Magnetic Field: The Marsden Poems and Blossomise, a collaboration with artist Angela Harding. His writing, whether translating classic works like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight or crafting modern travelogues such as Walking Home: Travels with a Troubadour on the Pennine Way, has always shown a willingness to open up poetry beyond its traditional audiences.
The Freedom ceremony acknowledged not only Simon Armitage’s literary achievements but also his contribution to cultural life more broadly. His musical collaborations through the ambient band LYR, alongside his plays and novels, reflect a career that has consistently blurred the boundaries between genres. Following the formal proceedings, Armitage took part in a special reading, introduced by two young poets from the Barbican Young Poets programme, who performed their own works inspired by his approach to language.
The Square Mile has long had links to the world of poetry and literature, from Shakespeare’s investment in Blackfriars to John Keats’ time in Hampstead. As Policy Chairman Chris Hayward noted, the City’s stewardship of Keats House and its literary heritage made Armitage’s award particularly appropriate. There is a quiet continuity in how the Freedom of the City of London continues to honour figures who bring imagination to public life.
In his own remarks after the ceremony, Armitage spoke of how London had become a “home from home” through poetry, describing the Freedom as a “visa in my poetic passport” to explore the City’s layers of history and modernity. It was a reminder that, even for a poet whose roots are firmly in West Yorkshire, the City of London has a lasting pull for those who find stories woven into its streets.
The Freedom of the City, believed to date back to 1237, has evolved over centuries into a way of recognising significant contributions to London and beyond. Recent recipients include Sir Lenny Henry, Lady Mary Peters, and Giles Terera MBE – a group that reflects the City’s broad view of what it means to enrich public life.
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