Moon landing poem launches Simon Armitage as poet laureate

Conquistadors – reproduced exclusively below – knits memories of first love and the Apollo 11 pioneers with reflections on colonialism. Read it below

Two months after his appointment, Simon Armitage has penned his first poem as the UK’s poet laureate: a commemoration of the 1969 moon landing, which compares the US astronauts to the Spanish explorers who conquered the Americas in the 16th century.