Ode Master

Roger McGough leapt out of bed this morning. He’d been grappling with a new poem, and the right wording had been eluding him. But as soon as he opened his eyes, there it was – ready to jot down.

“It’s funny the way it works. And I wasn’t losing sleep over it, but this morning the words just popped into my mind. My wife is very used to it, but I’m still trying to convince her I’m working when I’m lying in bed,” he laughs.

Being a poet is a mixed blessing, because while Roger has brought poetry into so many of our lives, it’s not something he can take or leave.

“I’m in a permanent state of anxiety and have a lot of nervous energy,” he tells me. “And once you produce a new book or tour, it’s so exciting it’s hard to get back into the rhythm of things where you have nothing else to think about, and can sit back and see what’s coming. It’s an ongoing process being a writer.”

So there you are, the Catch 22 of being a successful poet; lots of accolades, awards, events and shows, but little time to actually write the poems he needs to continue being successful.

“Oh, I think that’s just an excuse,” he says. “The writing is always there and I will only stop doing the readings when I have no new poems to write, but there always seems to be so much stuff.”

And despite his fame, Roger insists on reading his new work to an audience himself.

“I think it was the way I grew up,” he tells me.

“In Liverpool there was a very aural tradition, and I heard Dylan Thomas reading Under The Milkwood and thought ‘oh so that’s how you do poetry’. It seemed very natural to me, although I’m not a natural performer at all. But it’s heartening to see people react to your work. It gives you a fellowship and a bond with the audience.”

Roger also had his own taste of pop fame with his band The Scaffold, above, who reached number one in the UK Singles Chart in 1968 with Lily The Pink.

McGough was then responsible for much of the humorous dialogue in The Beatles’ animated film, Yellow Submarine, and mixed with all the top bands in the biz.

But it is his poems for which the 72-year-old was awarded an OBE, and a CBE for services to literature, alongside numerous other awards, too many to mention. And Roger has learned to embrace life, which means adapting his writing around a busy family life with four children.

“Before I had children I swore I wouldn’t have any in case they got in the way of the prose, but actually it works the other way because they take you away from yourself and give you lots of new perspectives,” he explains.

“And I may be distracted but I always try to be as normal as possible. I’m not a father whose study is sacrosanct and we have good times.”

But when Roger has to concentrate, he often goes on a writers retreat for 4-5 days at a time and travels a lot with this job. “I get invited to places like Sri Lanka and China and wonder whether it’s worth it,” he laughs. “But where were they when I was 30 or 40 and bored, broke and desperate to get away,” he asks, smiling.

So does he enjoy the success? “I try not to be too conscious of it because I always wanted to be an unknown genius and it didnt last long, so I feel guilty about that,” he tells me, “but I am also very lucky.

“But anyway on to death and kangaroos,” he laughs, changing the subject as quickly as he does genres and age ranges. “I turned up at a school in Wiltshire the other day with the wrong file because I thought it was a junior school and actually it was a talk for adults and seniors, but I used the same material and it didn’t matter at all. It’s what you say between the poems that counts.”

Join Roger McGough at 5pm today (Friday, October 23) at the Oxford Playhouse for an afternoon of poems to amaze and delight. After the reading, Roger will be signing copies of That Awkward Age, courtesy of Borders, at the theatre. Call the box office on 01865 305305 or go online at oxfordplayhouse.com