Somme from above: aerial photos inspire poet Simon Armitage

Poems matched with images offering ‘unfamiliar visual perspective’ of battle to form part of Norfolk and Norwich festival

Century-old images of a landscape already layered with millennia of history, which that became the setting for the slaughter of more than 20,000 men in one day, have captured the imagination of the poet Simon Armitage.

His new poems, matched with images from the battle of the Somme printed from the fragile glass negatives now in the collection of the Imperial War Museum, will be exhibited for the first time as part of the Norfolk and Norwich festival in May.

A time will certainly come in these rich vales

When a ploughman slicing open the soil