Books; PICK OF THE WEEK

Simon Armitage Thur Borders, 94-96 Briggate, Leeds

The people of Leeds will this week be the first to hear poet Simon Armitage's millennium poem, Killing Time (Faber pounds 6.99, 31 Dec), at an exclusive world premiere event at Borders.

Armitage was appointed poet-in-residence of the New Millennium Experience Company by the Poetry Society earlier this year, with a commission to write a 1,000-line poem to celebrate the passing of the millennium.

The poem is a smartly down-to-earth meditation on the events of the last 12 months - on high-school massacres and peace in Northern Ireland, on air attacks in Iraq, ground forces in Kosovo and nail bombs in London - as well as a filtering of the key events of the last 1,000 years, relayed through images from the CD-Rom version of the modern Domesday Book.

Borders, 94-96 Briggate, Leeds (0113-245 9076) Thur, 7pm, free