We’re addicted to interruption – daydreaming should be a GCSE subject, says Poet Laureate Simon Armitage

Before he became a writer, Simon Armitage had barely travelled outside of his native Yorkshire. Yet poetry has taken him to Tasmania, China and the Arctic, to universities and village halls, Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace. He speaks to Geordie Greig about the unfading power of words through history, and the profound grief he feels for his father, who shaped his journey from probation officer to Poet Laureate