Mmxii | Spartacus

I’d known of him, the legendary rebel, the gladiatorial slave who’d broken his shackles, who’d raised his own army, who’d plundered his master’s grave.

And we stood in the rain on the traffic island, at the roundabout’s broken white lines, and we aimed at the badges and logos of business, at the grilles of the four-by-fours, at the windows of showrooms and the revolving doors. spartacus mmxii

He said, There are slaves in the hands of the banks, slaves in the arms of the state, slaves to the wage, to the zero-hour contract, slaves to the zero-hour rate. I’d known of him, the legendary rebel, the

So I went online to track him down, to seek him out in the cyberworld, and typed his name into the search box, the key and the password. So I went online to track him down,

So I went to the hill where the ragwort grows, the slope where the dog-rose leans, with a half-brick wrapped in a carrier bag, with a copy of Big Issue magazine.

Here is the text of the poem Spartacus MMXII by Simon Armitage. This poem was commissioned for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad and originally appeared as a large-scale public artwork.