Antony Gormley

The Poet Laureate Has Gone to His Shed

If the poets of the past sat in their garrets dipping their quills in ink and waiting for inspiration to strike, our current Poet Laureate Simon Armitage has a more mundane and domestic arrangement. From his wooden shed in the garden, surrounded on all sides by the Pennine Hills and the Pennine weather, he scratches away at his reworking of the comic medieval poem The Owl and the Nightingale. Any distraction is welcome, even encouraged, to talk about poetry, music, art, sheds, sherry, owls, nightingales and to throw light on some of the poem's internal themes.

Sculptor Antony Gormley's visit begins with a walk around the garden where his eye is caught by some huge Yorkshire standing stones. Their conversation ranges from The Angel of the North, placing sculpture in the landscape and the sea to the skills of the shipyard and the relationship between art and engineering. From body shape to chemistry sets, potions and explosions to Antony's first work of art - two eyes, carved into a wall at his old school.