I haven't seen the name Simon Armitage since secondary school (uk). The national curriculum used to force-feed his poetry. I'm sure it's great an all, but... not to a 13 year old boy. He possibly ruined poetry for me for life.
In my campaign against force-feeding, I outright refused to read any work that was part of the school curriculum.
Agreed. Robert Louis Stevenson too. The bard and EAPoe too. I can appreciate them now, but RLS is the reason I detested reading for 2-3 years. Don't think that's the school experience anymore, at least I hope (there's probably always a good book choice, but no two people are the same).