Simon Armitage’s poem, which spells out the late monarch’s name acrostically, pays homage to ‘a promise made and kept for life’
The poet laureate, Simon Armitage, has released a poem to mark the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Floral Tribute, which has been distributed by Armitage’s publisher, Faber, is a double acrostic, with two verses consisting of nine lines, the first letters of which spell Elizabeth, a nod perhaps to funeral floral arrangements that spell out the deceased person’s name.
The poet directly references himself in the first verse: “I have conjured a lily to light these hours, a token of thanks.” Armitage thanks the Queen for her gift of “a promise made and kept for life” and offers his poem as “a gift in return”.
The poet uses the metaphor of a lily – and in line 11 specifically lily of the valley, which is said to have been the Queen’s favourite flower – to represent the poem and the Queen herself. “This lily that thrives between spire and tree, whose brightness/Holds and glows beyond the life and border of its bloom.”
Armitage described the acrostic form as a “problem to which the poem becomes a solution”, which in this case helped him to work creatively under time pressure. While there is no official job description for the poet laureate, he or she is generally expected to mark national occasions. “If you were thinking of writing a poem about the Queen, you wouldn’t automatically reach for the word ‘zeal’,” he said.
As well as helping him to “stretch [his] imagination”, the form was also a way to “encode” Queen Elizabeth’s name, Armitage said. “I was probably thinking a little bit about the first Elizabethan age”, the poet explained, when poetry was often “full of little signs and signals”.
Floral Tribute is the second poem the Yorkshire-born poet has written about the Queen this year, after Queenhood, which was written in celebration of her platinum jubilee. His first poem to address the royals during his laureateship was The Patriarchs, a tribute to Prince Philip after his death in April 2021.
Armitage was appointed poet laureate in May 2019, becoming the sixth person to take up the role during the Queen’s reign, following Cecil Day-Lewis, John Betjeman, Ted Hughes, Andrew Motion and Carol Ann Duffy. Philip Larkin was offered the role in 1984 but declined.
The honorary position has been an established role since 1668, and was originally chosen directly by the king or queen. While the poet laureate is still officially appointed by the reigning monarch, since 1790 the prime minister has recommended which candidate to appoint. After the dismissal of the Catholic John Dryden in 1689, the laureateship was held by his successors for life until 1999, when Motion was appointed for a fixed term of 10 years.
In 1952 the then poet laureate, John Masefield, produced just four lines to cover the death of the Queen’s father, King George VI. His On Hearing of the Sudden Death of His Majesty the King read:
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.css-19clw11{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#A1845C;}Wisdom who, with power infinite,
Utterest death to every creature born,
Grant to us now the mercy of Thy light,
With comfort to beloved Queens who mourn.
As well as royal poems, Armitage has written poems about scientific discoveries, the 50th anniversary of the moon landing and coronavirus during his time as laureate. He has also been undertaking a decade-long tour of libraries across the UK. In 2021 he visited libraries with names beginning with A and B, and this year he has been visiting ones beginning with C and D. Applications are now open for the 2023 tour, which will focus on E, F and G.