“As I was just mentioning on the Today programme,” Dr. John Cooper Clarke casually states, “Poetry is fundamentally a phonetic medium. It’s meant to be heard, not just read.”
The celebrated punk poet – a successor to Baudelaire and an inspiration for the Arctic Monkeys – has scheduled several performances this March to commemorate World Poetry Day. The lineup includes the London Palladium on March 19, Nottingham Royal Concert Hall on March 21, and concluding at the impressively large Manchester Co-op Live on March 29.
And fortunate me, I had an hour to chat with him over Zoom.
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Hello, Dr. John Cooper Clarke! How are you?
Exhausted. So very, very exhausted.
Sorry to hear that. What’s on your agenda today?
I’m in Sweden. I have a couple of gigs here, and then a TV show tomorrow, after which I’ll head to Switzerland for some literary festival.
I’m surprised your work resonates abroad, given its heavy use of colloquial and slang English.
Yes, I sometimes ponder what they are taking away from it. It’s not exactly easy to translate my work. It’s filled with outdated slang, American expressions, and bits of Yiddish. A few years ago in Spain, they suggested I bring in an interpreter. They convinced me to have a woman on stage to translate my performance line by line. But it failed. Poetry relies heavily on cadence and intonation; the translation was too literal. So after that, I just performed it in my usual manner.
You’re really all about reading poetry aloud, huh?
Yes, even the poets who have passed on. Especially them. It sounds better that way.
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I hear you can’t stand technology and still write everything by hand?
I don’t dislike technology. I simply don’t have any, so I can’t really hate it. I haven’t figured out if the downsides outweigh the benefits. I’m just not a digital person. However, I do love television. Every day, I’m grateful for the miracle of television. That’s what I spend most of my time doing – you can be sure that if I’m not reading or working, I’m either asleep or watching TV.
What’s your earliest memory of television?
We got our first TV later than most people. It was 1958, and I was ten. Until then, everyone at school was singing the commercials, but I didn’t know the words, so I felt left out. When we finally got a set, my life began. The very day we got it, it started paying off.
How’s that?
I attended Catholic school, and if you had a television at home, you could take a day off – as long as you watched the funeral of Pope Pius XII.
About time Pius XII got some recognition in CLASH. Preach on!
Well, to be honest, I must confess. I despised school, so I took the day off. Did I watch the funeral? No. Instead, I switched channels and watched Popeye the Sailor Man.
You rascal. Was television a significant influence for you as a writer?
Absolutely, along with movies. My dad was an engineer who worked away during the week, so I was my mum’s go-to movie companion. Women didn’t usually go to the cinema alone back then. We went five times a week. I loved Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Rock Hudson, and Doris Day. That’s when I first became captivated by the idiomatic depth of American English.
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How did you break into the world of poetry?
Initially, I tried being a nightclub entertainer. I wore a smart Ivy League suit with narrow trousers and slim lapels, and sported a suedehead feather cut. Even then, I was a bit out of sync with the times. But when punk rock emerged in the 70s, there were only two rules – no beards and no flares.
So you were a natural fit for it?
Howard Devoto, the lead singer of the Buzzcocks, frequently attended my cabaret performances. He suggested I would be better suited to the punk scene. I was all in on that. I was a huge Ramones fan, and punk was making waves.
Performing spoken word at a punk gig in the 70s… you must have had at least one ashtray thrown at you?
I played my fair share of working men’s clubs, which were even worse. The all-male, beer-drinking crowds would just ignore me. The early punks’ hostility was infinitely preferable to the indifference I faced at those clubs. Plus, being in the punk scene got me in the media. I saw the opportunity and seized it.
You’re now performing at that huge Co-op Live venue. Will you be expanding your act to fill the space? Dancers? Pyrotechnics?
Not at all; there’s
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“As I was saying a moment ago on the Today programme,” Dr. John Cooper Clarke casually states, “Poetry is a phonetic form. It’s meant to be listened to,