"Compulsively readable. ... Simon Armitage has given us an energetic, free-flowing, high-spirited version."—Edward Hirsch, New York Times Book Review, front-page reviewAlready a classic of modern translation, this fresh, vibrant work by dynamic British poet Simon Armitage updates the late fourteenth-century poem for a new generation. The story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in its depiction of Arthurian landscapes, dreamlike castles, and violent winter journeys, demands a peerless storyteller, and, "like the Gawain poet [himself], Armitage is some storyteller" (The Guardian). The work is an unparalleled masterpiece of alliteration and rhyme, and "[Armitage's] version inventively recreates the original's gnarled, hypnotic music ... but also has a free-flowing, colloquial twang that allows the poem to partake of the energies of contemporary speech" (Financial Times). 2 illustrations