“As I was just saying just now on the Today programme,” Dr John Cooper Clarke airily declares, “Poetry is a phonetic medium. It’s supposed to be heard, not read.”

The widely-revered punk poet – heir to Baudelaire, Arctic Monkey muse – will play a string of dates this March in honour of World Poetry Day. The itinerary? London Palladium March 19, Nottingham Royal Concert Hall March 21, and rounding off the trifecta at the ludicrously enormous Manchester Co-op Live on March 29. 

And lucky old me, I had like an hour to chew the fat with him over Zoom. 

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Hi there, Dr John Cooper Clarke! How are you?

Tired. So very, very tired. 

Sorry to hear that. What are you up to today?

I’m in Sweden. Got a couple of gigs over here, then a TV show tomorrow, then afterwards popping over to Switzerland for some sort of literary festival. 

I’m surprised your stuff goes over well abroad, being so littered with colloquial and slang English. 

Yes, I sometimes wonder what they’re getting out of it. It’s not like you can easily translate my stuff. It’s full of obsolete slang, Americanisms, bits and pieces of yiddish. In Spain, a few years ago, it was suggested I enlist an interpreter. They talked me into having a woman on stage, translating my performance, line by line. But it didn’t work. With poetry it’s all about cadence and intonation. The translation was too literal. So after that I just rattled it off in my usual style. 

You’re all about reading poetry aloud eh. 

Even the dead poets. Especially the dead ones. It’s more euphonious. 

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I’m told you can’t bear technology and still write everything longhand?

I don’t hate technology. I just don’t have any, so I can’t hate it. I haven’t worked out if there are more disadvantages than advantages. I’m just not a digital person. However, I love television. Every day I thank God for the miracle of television. That’s what I spend all my time doing – you can bet that if I’m not reading, or working, I’m asleep. Or watching television. 

What’s your earliest TV memory?

We got our first TV set a little later than other people. It was 1958, and I was 10 years old. Up to then everyone else at school was singing the adverts, but I didn’t know the lyrics, so I felt socially excluded. Then we got a set, and my life began. In fact, the very day we got our television set, it started paying dividends.

How so?

I went to Catholic school, and anybody at my school with a television was permitted to take the day off – on the condition we all tuned into the funeral of Pope Pius XII. 

About time Pius XII got a shout-out in CLASH. Preach!

Well, in truth, I have a confession to make. I hated school, so I took the day off. Did I watch the funeral of Pope Pius XII? No. Instead, I switched over to the other side and watched Popeye the Sailor man.

You scoundrel. Was telly a big inspiration for you as a writer?

That and the movies. My dad was an engineer and worked away all week. Which meant I was my mum’s default movie date. Back then a woman would never go to the movies on her own. We went five times a week. I used to love Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis. Rock Hudson, Doris Day. It’s when I first felt drawn to the idiomatic richness of American English. 

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How did you crack the world of poetry?

I tried being a nightclub entertainer at first. I’d don a rather fine Ivy League suit with narrow trousers, slim lapels. Hair in a suedehead feather cut. I was anachronistic, even then. However, when punk rock hit, in the 70s, there only two sartorial rules – no beards, and no flares.

So you were made for it?

Howard Devoto, lead singer of the Buzzcocks, was a regular at my appearances on the cabaret scene. He pointed out I’d fit much better into the world of punk rock. I was all for that. I was a big fan of the Ramones. And punk was making headlines. 

Doing spoken-word at a punk gig in the 70s… surely you had at least one ashtray lobbed at you?

I played my share of working men’s clubs. They were much worse. All male, pint-drinking audiences would just ignore me. The hostility of the early punks was infinitely preferable to the world of indifference I faced at the working men’s clubs. Plus, as I say, being part of the punk scene got me in the papers. I saw the bandwagon, and I jumped on it. 

Now you’re playing that massive Co-op Live place. Will you be expanding your act to fill the space? Dancers? Pyrotechnics?

No, there’s no way of expanding what I do. I not going to bust my arse putting on some kind of spectacle. I’m not a team player, never have been. That’s why I’m a poet. I know how to fill time – and anyway, I doubt anybody will leave. The tickets are expensive. 

You’ve got a whole new generation of fans thanks to Alex Turner and Arctic Monkeys. 

I cannot thank that guy enough – he is the gift that keeps on giving. Even before all of that I was a big fan. I met them a fortnight before they went global, they were introduced to me at a club called The Boardwalk in Sheffield, when I was doing a tour with The Fall. 

What was your first impression?

Somebody, a manager I think, said these lads are going places. I’ve heard that a million times. Then he told me the name, Arctic Monkeys, and I said that’s a great name. 

What did you like about it?

I mean, you’ve got a problem right away haven’t you (laughs). What’s an ape doing in the North Pole? Is it animal abuse? I thought it was very dramatic and unusual, so much so I could easily imagine them going straight to the toppermost of the poppermost. 

That song they used your poem on – I Wanna Be Yours – probably did your bank balance no harm either eh.

Young man, the PRS alone has elevated me to the status of a king on earth. 

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You’re a funny guy, how important is it to you get laughs?

I go back over poems all the time and add jokes. I have a million poems, so I need to be very stringent about my running order. 

Plus I guess different audiences laugh at different things?

Oh yes, I can tell a joke in Manchester that’ll make them split their sides, but they won’t laugh at all in Liverpool. 

…why’s that?

They can’t hear it all the way over there, of course. 

Good one. While we’re on, got any bootleg, under-the-counter poems to share?

I’ve written quite a few adverts. Jingles, if you like, many of which never got used.

Go on then. 

It’s great, writing jingles, because there’s a right way and a wrong way. All I need to know is, is it a 30 second or a 60 second spot. I get all the information I need, then crack on writing something amusing and memorable within the limits. 

Spit it out man. 

Okay, I’ll tell you a couple I did for a particular gin brand. I won’t tell you the gin brand, because they never paid me – no free advertising on my dime. 

Gotcha.

I didn’t get the gig, maybe because I was too honest about the product. You’re not allowed to talk about getting drunk. Anyway here’s a couple. 

when the working week gets under your skin 
and the afternoon is wearing thin 
it’s 5:30 somewhere, let the evening begin
with gin!

Lovely. One more for the road?

at the public bar of any welcoming inn 
he’s the geezer with the goofy grin 
what got him into the state he’s in?
gin

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Catch Dr John Cooper Clarke live at the following shows:

March
19 London Palladium
21 Nottingham Royal Concert Hall
29 Manchester Co-op Live

Words: Andy Hill
Photo Credit: Paul Wolfgang Webster

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