Name: Gilgamesh: A New Verse Translation
Start: 2026-04-28T19:30:00-04:00
End: 2026-04-28T21:00:00-04:00
Location: Heinz Memorial Chapel

UK Poet Laureate Simon Armitage will visit the International Poetry Forum to read from his new translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
About this Event

Event info:

The International Poetry Forum is honored to welcome UK Poet Laureate Simon Armitage to Pittsburgh for a reading and commentary on his forthcoming verse translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh. This free event will be held at the historic Heinz Memorial Chapel on the University of Pittsburgh's campus. Directions, parking, and access information are available here.

Books will be available via our friends from City of Asylum Bookstore for sale and signing. This event is kindly co-sponsored by the Departments of English, Classics, and Religious Studies of the University of Pittsburgh's Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences.

Poet bio:

One of England’s best-loved authors and current UK Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage is an award-winning poet, author, songwriter, playwright, and translator. His numerous collections of poetry include New Cemetery, The Unaccompanied, Paper Aeroplane: Poems 1989-2014, Seeing Stars, Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus the Corduroy Kid, and The Shout. In addition, he has published new verse translations of The Odyssey, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and The Death of King Arthur. His nonfiction book, Walking Home: A Poet’s Journey, documents his 265-mile walking tour across England, working as a “modern troubadour.” In 2010, for services to poetry, Armitage was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) at Buckingham Palace. His other numerous awards in the UK include the Gregory Award and a Forward Prize; in the US he has received a major Lannan Award and was twice shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Armitage was the Professor of Poetry at Oxford University (2015-2019) and is Professor of Poetry at the University of Sheffield.

About the International Poetry Forum:

From W.H. Auden to Seamus Heaney, Grace Kelly to James Earl Jones, the International Poetry Forum has welcomed some of the world’s most celebrated poets and performers—even royalty—to Pittsburgh since 1966.

Alumni of this historic reading series include Jorge Luis Borges, Tennessee Williams, Gwendolyn Brooks, Chinua Achebe, Mary Oliver, Elizabeth Bishop, Kurt Vonnegut, Gregory Peck, Princess Grace of Monaco, Queen Noor of Jordan, and more than 800 voices from over 50 countries. Among them: 9 Nobel Laureates, 14 Oscar winners, 47 Pulitzer Prize recipients, and a Steelers Super Bowl MVP.