April 15: You're Beautiful by Simon Armitage

Simon Armitage is one of the most popular British poets today, admired by both literary readers and high-school students, who are assigned his work in class, for the frankness, humor, and emotional restraint he brings to his subjects. His book Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus the Corduroy Kid, now available on our shores, meditates on youth and age, monsters and underdogs, on the life of nations and the individual heart. His use of colloquial language is both playful and serious, throwing off sparks of higher self-understanding, as below.

You’re Beautiful

because you’re classically trained.
I’m ugly because I associate piano wire with strangulation.

You’re beautiful because you stop to read the cards in
   newsagents’ windows about lost cats and missing dogs.
I’m ugly because of what I did to that jellyfish with a lolly
   stick and a big stone.

You’re beautiful because for you, politeness is instinctive, not
   a marketing campaign.
I’m ugly because desperation is impossible to hide.

      Ugly like he is,
      Beautiful like hers,
      Beautiful like Venus,
      Ugly like his,
      Beautiful like she is,
      Ugly like Mars.

You’re beautiful because you believe in coincidence and the
   power of thought.
I’m ugly because I proved God to be a mathematical
   impossibility.

You’re beautiful because you prefer home-made soup to the
   packet stuff.
I’m ugly because once, at a dinner party, I defended the
   aristocracy and wasn’t even drunk.

You’re beautiful because you can’t work the remote control.
I’m ugly because of satellite television and twenty-four-hour
   rolling news.

      Ugly like he is,
      Beautiful like hers,
      Beautiful like Venus,
      Ugly like his,
      Beautiful like she is,
      Ugly like Mars.

You’re beautiful because you cry at weddings as well as
   funerals.
I’m ugly because I think of children as another species from
   a different world.

You’re beautiful because you look great in any colour
   including red.
I’m ugly because I think shopping is strictly for the
   acquisition of material goods.

You’re beautiful because when you were born, undiscovered
   planets lined up to peep over the rim of your cradle and lay
   gifts of gravity and light at your miniature feet.
I’m ugly for saying “love at first sight” is another form of
   mistaken identity, and that the most human of all responses
   is to gloat.

      Ugly like he is,
      Beautiful like hers,
      Beautiful like Venus,
      Ugly like his,
      Beautiful like she is,
      Ugly like Mars.

You’re beautiful because you’ve never seen the inside of a
   car-wash.
I’m ugly because I always ask for a receipt.

You’re beautiful for sending a box of shoes to the third
   world.
I’m ugly because I remember the telephone numbers of
   ex-girlfriends and the year Schubert was born.

You’re beautiful because you sponsored a parrot in a zoo.
I’m ugly because when I sigh it’s like the slow collapse of a
   circus tent.

      Ugly like he is,
      Beautiful like hers,
      Beautiful like Venus,
      Ugly like his,
      Beautiful like she is,
      Ugly like Mars.

You’re beautiful because you can point at a man in a uniform
   and laugh.
I’m ugly because I was a police informer in a previous life.

You’re beautiful because you drink a litre of water and eat
   three pieces of fruit a day.
I’m ugly for taking the line that a meal without meat is a
   beautiful woman with one eye.

You’re beautiful because you don’t see love as a competition
   and you know how to lose.
I’m ugly because I kissed the FA Cup then held it up to the
   crowd.

You’re beautiful because of a single buttercup in the top
   buttonhole of your cardigan.
I’m ugly because I said the World’s Strongest Woman was a
   muscleman in a dress.

You’re beautiful because you couldn’t live in a lighthouse.
I’m ugly for making hand-shadows in front of the giant bulb,
   so when they look up, the captains of vessels in distress see
   the ears of a rabbit, or the eye of a fox, or the legs of a
   galloping black horse.

      Ugly like he is,
      Beautiful like hers,
      Beautiful like Venus,
      Ugly like his,
      Beautiful like she is,
      Ugly like Mars.

      Ugly like he is,
      Beautiful like hers,
      Beautiful like Venus,
      Ugly like his,
      Beautiful like she is,
      Ugly like Mars.

Read more poems from Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus the Corduroy Kid

More about Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus the Corduroy Kid

About Simon Armitage

Meet Simon Armitage in Seattle, Spokane, or Appleton, Wisconsin this month.