Xandu

These poems were written for a poem-film by Simon Armitage to be shown in the new BBC 2 series Words on Film. The film is set on the Ashfield Valley Estate in Rochdale, Lancashire, which consisted of 26 alphabetically named flats. Ashfield Valley was in the process of being demolished as the poems were written and the film was being made.

Simon Armitage used to work as a probation officer, and his first posting as a raw recruit was to Rochdale, where his patch included Ashfield Valley. Xanadu is his personal and imaginative response to the ill-starred estate, using highly innovative and strangely unsettling poetry and film techniques, assisted by contributions from the last surviving Ashfield tenants - highly innovative and unsettling, hard-edged poetry. Dogs, snow and Hungarian dancers add further zest to Armitage's Xanadu.