Nobody Panic - Bonus Episode: How to Write Poetry with Rob Auton

Episode Date: May 7, 2020

Hate poetry? Put off for life by GCSE English and think it’s all daffodils and iambic pentameter? This one is for you. The wonderful Rob Auton, host of The Rob Auton Daily Podcast and owner of the world’s greatest voice, guides Stevie and Tessa through the world of poetry, and teaches us how to release our inner poet.You can follow Rob on Twitter: @RobertAuton and Instagram: @robautonYou can listen to The Rob Auton Daily Podcast here and also follow it on Twitter and Instagram: @robautonpodcastRecorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive Productions.Photos by Marco Vittur, jingle by David Dobson.Follow Nobody Panic on Twitter @NobodyPanicPodSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/nobodypanic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Carriad. I'm Sarah. And we are the Weirdo's Book Club podcast. We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival. The date is Thursday, 11th of September. The time is 7pm and our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies. Tickets from kingsplace.com. Single ladies, it's coming to London.

True on Saturday, the 13th of September. At the London Podcast Festival. The rumours are true, Saturday the 13th of September. At King's Place. Oh, that sounds like a date to me, Harriet. And me, Tessa, and today, a special guest has joined us in the quarantine bunker. The quarantine bunker welcomes, writer-performer, Rob Orton, of the amazing Rob Auton Daily podcast, which if you haven't listened, is absolutely brilliant.

I'd say it's the perfect thing to have with your breakfast in the morning. Thank you very much. That's very nice. I'm pleased that you like it. Rob, you do comedy, but also poetry and also comedy slash poetry. and he's here to basically teach us and talk to us about how to write poetry. And we're not talking, you know, necessarily getting your poem into an anthology. We're just talking about how to express yourself creatively,

which is something that Rob does very well, and me and Tessa would like to do more of. Yes, you don't have to be the poet laureate. You just have to write them for yourself, maybe. Could I know. Why not? And that's the aim of this podcast. How to be a poet laureate?

That's all we're all aiming for. May I tell you, my, wait, I've got to tell you, tell you my good theory. This is how I think, this is how I think school exams should be, exactly how they do the owls in Harry Potter. And you just go one by one into a room where like your physics teacher has like, you have to like wire a plug or like measure something using only a few tools or like you basically have to like play a various escape rooms in which you apply the fucking thing you've been trying to learn, but in a real world setting. Love that.

Very good. And that's why you should be the principal. all schools. I'm pitching for Ministry of Education and I really think I could be it. Yes, but before we get in deep into poetry, I'm already very excited to talk about it. What adult thing, Rob, have you done this week? Ah, well, there's a cheese plant in the front room and I looked at it and I saw that some of the, like normally it's quite strong and there was a new leaf and they normally like spear out and then unfold. But it just stopped and I looked at it and I thought, oh, there's something wrong there. And so I turned over the other leaves and there was all these little bugs. So I wiped

the bugs away with fairy liquid and water and I cleaned the cheese plant. And that was quite an adult thing, I thought. That's excellent. Also, can I pop in with, I've got exactly the same problem and I've been battling these bugs for like months. And I bought this fly paper on Amazon and it's yellow and you put a little bit of like a little square of it in the soil and then when the lava hatch they all just literally go onto the paper and then you break the cycle really may I and it's only 299 for some fly paper on Amazon and you might feel bad about the fiber but they are flies so let's just you know it's fine oh that's such a good one I've got a a succulent I've been keeping alive for months now and it is such a little tricky little tricksy bugger because sometimes his leaves all roll up

and you think, that's it, he's dead, that's the end. And then you put him in water, and then overnight he's like, prank. And then he looks fantastic again. I'll tell you what is brilliant. At the start of this lockdown, I saw a video on how to regrow your vegetables in water. So we started growing this leak. So basically, you just chop off the end of a leak, put it in the shot glass with some water, and then it starts growing again.

How do you feel like, do you feel like God? It's bloody awesome. You can do it with onions, spring onions. I've also got a leak and I've got a, I would say a farm of spring onions now. I've got a professional outfit going. That's excellent. What's your adult thing, does it? If not a farm of spring onion.

Oh, my adult thing is that I made these cookies that everybody, my friend Ella, who writes a cookbook called Midnight Chicken, and she's on Instagram and she's putting up all her recipes. And then everybody was doing her Paris cookies. and it was like, oh, they're so easy. And I saw all these pictures, and everybody kept saying, the easiest cookies in the world. And I was like, all right, I'll give her a go.

And obviously I burnt the fuckers. And I put the picture up on Instagram because they'd gone, I put them in like blobs, and then stuck them in the oven, and then they'd come out just one giant burn cookie that was raw in the middle, burn on the edges.

The easiest cookies in the world. Anyway, and I put the picture up, and then loads of people messaged very, very nicely and politely, not in a like, can I just say? They were really, like, if it's at all helpful, the problem there is the tin foil. You've put them on tin foil. And so, um, firstly, the, all the sort of goo and the butter in it just like, swoosh, spreads out on the tin foil, but also the heat conducts in such a way that that the bottom gets way hotter than the top, which is why it's burnt and raw at the same time. And so you've got to put it on baking paper, which is obviously what it's said in the recipe, but you go, fuck that. I'm not, I'm not doing that. I haven't got any. So fuck it. This will do. It looks. but no, it turns out you've got to listen to the instructions and you do have to put it on baking paper. So just a public service announcement there,

I bought the baking paper and I'm going to give it another go this afternoon. So watch this space. Excellent, excellent. What's yours? Mine's very, very simple. I've decided to embark on a new project. The project is that for my whole life, all of my nightwear has been very much like T-shirts from like P.E.

at school with like just very shit tracksuits that are from Primark. And I was like, I think, like, I'm 32 this year. I think it's time now that I wear, like, pajamas, like actual matching pajamas. So I'm starting to slowly swap them out. And I bought my first, like, nice pair. They arrived. They are quite weird. They've got, like, I thought they were going to be, like, quite soft, but they've got very, like, puffy sleeves. Like, I look a little bit like an old sort of colonial gentleman who's in India or something. It's a very odd look and have to pull it back and just get some nice, sort of flanneled, checked numbers for the future.

Like a lovely sort of Edwardian lord. I've definitely seen it in like the Kinginai or something, you know? Wow. It's a problematic film, and they're problematic pyjamas. I hold my hands up my head. I shouldn't have bought them. But let's get into poetry. One of the great things I think is that I'm somebody who,

and I don't know if listening, you feel the same, but whenever someone talks about poetry to me, I do English literature and I hated, I hated the poetry. We had to do like romantics and I didn't read any of the romantics and tried to do the examiner, did very badly actually. And I always feel like I don't get it and I shouldn't, I should, it's, but what's, what's happened is, is that I'm reading old, very old poetry and being very upset that I can't understand it. And then when I listen to your podcast or you put some of your poems on your Instagram as well, and it's on your website too. It's like, oh, well, I like that. Yeah, that's good and fun. And I wish all poetry was like that. But actually,

that sort of is what poetry kind of is, right? Exactly, yeah. I think I had exactly the same feeling of reading things and not getting anything from it. And people telling me that, no, no, this is what is meant to be really good. And I should be getting things from it. but I wasn't and and I think that's why when I start to when people say that what I do is poetry

I kind of take it as a compliment really because I just always say that it's writing and then if someone gets like a poetic feeling from it then that's really good and I guess that's the goal but I think loads of different stuff can be poetry can't it like I don't know walking along a market and seeing something

that giving you that feeling of a everyday day, like every single person at the moment will be going through so many poetic feelings. And I guess it's just about trying to harness them and write them down and not be scared about it. But I think a lot of people get it battered out of them at school, being like, oh, I've had this feeling and it means a lot to me. But I don't know if I should write it down or not, whereas I think everyone should be writing it down. And whenever I go up to the Edinburgh Festival, I think it's all right. It all been comedians and performers and stuff. But I wish it was more of just general people, just saying how they feel about the world.

I think that would be so interesting just to like see everyone's insight. Like my dad was a plumber who's retired now, but he, if he got up and spoke about his day, what he was doing, I'd be really interested in that and like everyone, you know. Absolutely. I think so the GCSE English, the English poetry GCSE this year, and I know because I helped my small cousin through it. The format was there were 30 people. poems of which in the exam you would be tested on one that was written down and then you had to know another one from memory and then compare and contrast the two but you they were all in different themes so you basically had to make yourself this like mathematical spreadsheet about like what you

and like spread bet which ones you were going to memorize for what might come up and how you were going to compare them so I was like no child is going to come away with this with like an appreciation and a love of poetry all you're going to come away was like oh I hated I hate this I hate being forced to learn something and then like forced to find these. You can't be express yourself and find these amazing creative links or be able to talk about poetry if your only experience of it was like desperately trying to memorize something. Yeah, I think a lot of English, a lot of school business, let's call school business, completely erratic.

I remember like with maths and stuff and obviously maths is very mathematical, but I remember when we went to like sixth form and loads of my friends with doing like applied maths and it was all about like how to make things with maths how to like I was like oh that's what the triangles were they weren't just triangles like they were to make things I was like oh I'm doing that actually when it's just like you have to find this line of the triangle I don't well I don't know what that is and it's like same with like poetry you're just seeing it as like syncopated rhythm and all of these like things it's like well if it's like this and it's like this and this means that and it becomes like you're learning a language that you can't access

I was going to say, what is it that first got you into poetry? The first thing, I think I did a degree in graphic design, and that was all about ideas, right? And they were just interested in the concepts behind how your stuff looked. It wasn't so much about how your stuff, but they were really interested in the ideas. And we were doing these lino prints, and it was all about money. And I had an idea that was, you've never handled. anything so much that so many other people have handled. And that was, I mean, it's not a mind-blowing thought or anything like that,

but I got a good grade for it. And I thought, oh, right. And then it was quite succinct. And I thought, oh, maybe I'll try and write some more things like that. And then when I saw a documentary about Iva Cuppler on BBC 4, and I saw what he was doing. And I thought, oh, God, I love that. Because it wasn't really poetry and it wasn't really comedy.

just were, well, it was both, but it was just coming at it from a completely different angle. And there was no pretentiousness about it. And it just made me think that it just, it's like when you see a piece of art that kind of makes you think, oh, wow, this is, it just puts you into a different place. And that's what I think everyone needs that. If they, to get, it's like a massive thing of being inspired for the first time. I was just like, oh, God, I'm going to try and do some of that. So for any of our listeners who are not O'Fay with your poems and your work,

do you want to maybe read one of your poems to us and then everyone can also just have a lovely bit of enjoyment in your day? So this is called Entertainment. We'll treat it as entertainment, shall we? What? What should we treat as entertainment? That tree over there, the one with the sky behind it. Yeah, okay.

As the entertainment started, yet. Yes, it has. We've missed a beginning, haven't we? Yes, we have. Will we get to see the end? No, we won't. We have to make the most of the bits we get to see. Catch them in our thought nets.

A quickly reversing car. The smile of someone you like. The bright colours of the junk mail on the doormat. The sun shining on the last orange in the fruit. ball. We are so futuristic to those who are gone, historic to those who are to come. We owe it to them to have a look at all while we're still got the chance. Oh my God. So lovely. I don't have a sit and think about it. That's the thing, isn't it? And just to do a little shout out for your podcast, the Rob Orton

Daily podcast, it is so beautiful. And I think, forget all those, you know, the calm headspace app just like you've got the most beautiful voice in the most beautiful way of looking at the world and I truly think there's such a there's such a delightful little mini mini thing to listen to every day you brighten my day no end um that was absolutely beautiful and I just think like you know if if you were then made to talk about it in a lesson or whatever you're like it sort of takes away from the magic of being able to experience something between like you and the artist or whatever or like you know take whatever you personally want from from your piece to then have to sit in a classroom and talk about, you know, iambic pentameter or whatever.

Definitely. One of the best things is that I've got to do a few festivals like bestival and camp festival and camp festival, especially with all the kids there. There's a lot of kids at that festival. And sometimes when I read the poetry out, their reaction to it is exactly the reaction I had to it when I was writing it. So their laughter is in exactly the right place where I thought something was funny. And they're like bang on it more than the adults, the kids.

One exercise I like to try and do is get the Argus catalog or when there was Argus catalogs and just flip through it with your eyes shut, put your finger on a random object and try and write a poem about it, whether it's like a kettle or a cupboard or something, you know, that's fun. Is that if you had to, and I know it's horrible being asked to, like, give advice or give top tips, but if that was the thing that you, for people who wanted to start, who'd never written a poem before and wanted to start, Is that where you'd say to start with something like that? I think the biggest lesson that I've learned with anything of standing up and stuff like that is that the only thing that we've got that's unique is ourselves.

That's it. Anything else that you try to do that's different to that that's coming from your personal perspective is not going to have the same impact as a feeling that you had when you were walking down the street when you like tripped up and then you saw a red car or something and you're like, oh wow, this is weird. I feel weird about this. And I think the best thing to do is like just try to pin those things. down that when they come to you and say like if you're just getting in a relationship with someone or breaking up and like you've got this stuff that's coming at you from all angles it's like if it comes to you in specific sentences or something like that just flipping a lot of that bang and nail it down on paper and because it's a really good way of doing it and everyone's human experience is like

it's obvious but the more specific you make it the more people can like latch onto it whereas if there's a famous quote about like if you try to write something about a brick wall, people won't get anything from it. But if you focus on one brick and just talk about the cracks in it and stuff like that and the moss growing around it, then people might latch onto it a bit more. And I think it's just about, especially when we're in this lockdown situation at the moment, there's so many things. Like one of my mates sent me a message about, he started this creative writing thing. And he was talking about, he sent me this bit of writing that he's done. And it was about the fact that he's in lockdown with his mom and dad.

He halved a cheese and pickle sandwich with his dad late at night, and it was like this really special moment between them. The emotion that he put into that writing from just something as clear as day as a cheese and pickle sandwich and your dad, it's like that's where the magic is, and that's where it's not about trying to be clever and make it rhyme or anything like that. And he said to me, like, what is it? It's not poetry.

It's not short stories. It's not, what is it? And that's where it is. For me, that's the good stuff. just get it down and don't worry about it because the more it becomes like a right and wrong answer that's where I've washed my hands with it and when I first started writing poetry

or writing writing I put it on this website called Poem Hunter just to try to share my work and this guy got in touch with me and sent me a direct message and was like I've written all your poems for you they are rubbish but they are better than you're rubbish and he'd rewritten them

so they all rhymed and it was all I was like oh not interested one awful way of looking at anything, but especially poetry, to say, I've made it better now because it rhymes. Like, an outrageous thing to do. I was going to ask, Rob, do you have any, I mean, the original question I was going to ask was like, are there really good, like, resources forbidding poets? But actually, I'm going to reframe that because I think that that is, like, I always do, the more, like, academic, like, what are the rules?

And what sort of situations or places or things do you feel, most kind of a most conducive to being creative obviously everything and the every day that you've talked about but are those there's perfect times or things that you like to do that kind of get the juices flowing over here and a lot of stuff and being inspired by that like just being in the everyday situations like I was in the supermarket and there was two guys and they were thinking about what meat to buy for a roast and one said to the other oh no she won't eat pork because it's got religion in it And that was so inspiring to me. And it just, just a simple thing like that just throws the whole religion thing into, like, it just lights me up.

Just like stuff in, that happens in post offices. And I love reading. One of my favorite books is this, it's called S-U-M-40 Tales from the afterlife. Oh, my God. Have you read that? Yeah, really. I read it standing up in the bookshop. And he's a brain surgeon, isn't he?

This is David Eagleman? He's like one of the brainiest people around, but he's written this whole book about what it might be like to be like in the afterlife. So it's just short stories. This one's called Mirrors, and it starts off. I don't know how this is going to go, but he says, when you think you've died, you haven't actually died. Death is a two-stage process,

and where you wake up after your last breath is something of a purgatory. You don't feel dead. You don't look dead. And in fact, you are not dead yet. And just stuff like that. I love that. And then Bob Dylan was the first person, really, where he made me think,

oh, wow, you can put words together and they don't have to make sense. And he's got a book called Tarantula, that it's all like peak 1965 stream of consciousness stuff, like Dracula smoking a cigarette and eating an angel, the ghost of a cheetah. And just images like that. I love stuff that puts images in your head that aren't already there,

like the ghost of a cheetah. How good is that? And that's it. It's like trying to be in staying inspired and just engaged with the world, even though there's so much shit. Bob Dylan and David Eagleman and then people like John Higley and Werner Herzog, and it's just so much,

but it's difficult because I really get, it's really, really sad. Talking about my work, it energizes me, and it makes me realize why I do what I do. I really like reading the red hand files by Nick Cave, and it's just these letters that he sends to his fans on his website, red hand files.com and someone asked him what he thought about Kanye West

and he said that he's one of, if not the most important living artist because being an artist is all about committing to your own derangement and no one does that more than Kanye West. And I think that that is what I try to do is like a lot of the stuff that I do is quite deranged and it's not, it might not make sense to me straight away but it's like that feeling of, oh, I like that, I'm going to flip and write that down and commit. to it and then stand up on stage and people look at you like you're an absolute moron,

but you're just going to take it on the chin and tweak it a little bit. And the thing is, as well, there's a lot of discipline, isn't it? I'm trying so hard to make myself right because I can be quite lazy sometimes. And I know that if I really force myself to do it and then you go to bed and you wake up in the morning, you're like, oh yeah, I did that. It's like, I've got a thing about cleaning out the fridge. And, you know, when you clean out the fridge and then you forget you've done, it and then you open it and you're like oh yes i've done i did that it's the same thing of like writing

something or just um how do you go about that discipline are you like okay well i'm going to put aside half an hour at this time or you're like half an hour at any point in the day or do you just try and write every day like how do you do it well when it comes to the crunch with writing for the edinburgh shows i uh try to do a start my stopwatch and write for an hour and then put a tally tally mark down and try to do five hours and if I get distracted, stop it and then do it and try and just try and really hammer it out. And those are the days when I get most stuff done really. But the discipline of, I need deadlines, basically. Like we're doing this podcast at the moment and I've got to write the June episodes. And so I'll just try and it's pressure. I think everyone

needs to be pressured. And one of the hardest things I find about being self-employed is that you're boss is you and you've got to give yourself a bollicking and it's really brutal. Yeah, and that boss is very lax. Yeah, you're your own boss but you're also your own employee and like everybody in the company's shit. I think it must be really hard at the start to not just think everything you've done is shit. That must be very hard. Did you feel like that at the start, Rob, when you were just sort of having a go? Yeah, 100%. Yeah, totally. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't how you get past that, you're just going to like believe in yourself enough to try to keep going with it. And I think I just with the, I think one, one good thing that I would say is that if you

can find the open mic poetry night, there's one in Covent Garden. I know that sometimes people get told off of being London centric, but there's poetry, open mic poetry nights all over the country. And in this lockdown, if you do write something down and you work on it and you look at it and you like it, nothing will give it more like muscle and belief in it more than you stand it up in front of a room of people and just reading it. And it's such a brilliant challenge. And I used to go to the, there's one in Covent Garden, it's every Tuesday night at half by seven. Sometimes you get 50 people reading for five minutes. And it's just as some people have never done it before. Some people have done it for ages. But it's so, people are so accepting and it's really inspiring of hearing

different people reading of just their truth really and all these different experiences. And I think that's what it is just for me. I only write to try to make myself excited about being alive, basically. Truth is just the whole heart of it, isn't it? I think, because whatever creative outlet you find, if that's writing or painting or poetry or anything, in the beginning, you'll only ever be sort of aping the stuff that you like and doing a painting that looks like whatever you like or you're writing in the stuff. of your favorite poet or whatever.

And it takes such a long time to be like, oh, this is my personal style or my voice. So, like, my truth is finally, like, coming out here. And I'm sure that takes such a long time for that to be allowed. But that truth can only come out if you sort of pave the way by, like, doing, putting the time in and doing the, doing the stuff. The idea of an open mic poetry note might feel, obviously, if you're not someone who's like a performer or, you know,

might feel absolute terrifying. but I do think that's a great idea because you're right. It just really, nothing says I back myself than reading it out. But one thing that I thought would be quite helpful if for people who would be quite maybe too frightened to do that is you could go, you could go to a few before you like read,

because then you see without wanting to be like mean, I guess, then you can see like where the bar is and how the bar can be quite low. Some things you're engaged with and some things be like, what was that? And that's what's great about these, these like scratch nights or these it's like when we started doing comedy and tessa ran around this night and i went to a few of them and and she was like you should see like look it's fine just it's

just people saying things and it's and there's like 10 people in the room and and like no one and then it finishes and no one cares and i still very much struggle to do it but it really did help seeing that like other people it really inspires me when like other comedians forget their words and have to read because i always read off a script because i get really nervous about line learning and i love it And you see people, like, oh, I've forgotten what I was saying, sorry, hang on. And you're like, yes, you're allowed to do that. And it's like with open mic poetry, like, if you go and see some, you will definitely see stuff that you will think, oh, I could have a go at that. I could definitely do something like that.

And people don't have to be natural performers to be poets, did they? So, you know, I'm sure a lot of people will be quite nervous and, you know, worried and just really reading. And then some people will just be really just like flow in it. And it's great. But you can just, you know, there's a whole spectrum, basically. is what it was wrong. The poetry community sounds much more supportive and inspiring than the stand-up

community. When people ask us about doing stand-up, I always say, go to an open mic night, like people doing it for their first time or just, you know, go to the shittest one you can find. And I say not to be inspired, but to see us how shit it is. And to be like, if that man can get up and tell those terrible jokes, then so can you.

Whereas it sounds like sort of the polar opposite is the poetry community. It has this like, everyone's welcome, everyone's just allowed to say their thing. Everyone's so supportive. Everybody's acknowledging that this art form is really sort of ethereal. And there is no right and wrong. And it's like, you know, yeah, come up, tell your truth.

It sounds really wonderful. I'm excited to go to one. It's brilliant. It's so inspiring because you hear so many words just for a night. And one of the good things is as well is that I often go and people say things. And I think, are they going to say that? Are they going to say that? Are they going to say that?

No, they didn't say that. I'll have that. Cheers. Highly recommend that. And the thing is, there is no bar. And if there is a bar, it can do one because no one, you know, just have a go. And it's really, the bar can be left behind at school. And it's like, no thanks. There's no results. That's the thing. It's like, and there might be someone there who says something that really resonates with the room. But then you look at that and you go, oh, right, that got the room like that. It's like seeing someone do a good speech at a wedding. It's the same thing. It's like some of the crap. Even the crap ones, you're always like, oh, good on you for, like, try, you really admire them for just getting up and trying. There's

nothing more actually, I feel, there's nothing more heartwarming than seeing, like, the father of the bride or the mother of the bride standing up, and they're not a public speaker, and they're like really frightened, and they, and they, like, pop in a joke, and they're like, the joke, and everyone goes, like, yay! Because it's like, this is a joke. Yeah, and exactly the same. Yeah, and exactly the same. is like when those speeches have clearly come from like best man.com and are just like a sort of a generic mother-in-law joke or a generic joke everyone's like I mean ha ha but like fuck off but like when it's even if they're just telling the smallest story about you know something little that's a true story and they're saying why they thought that was funny or heartwarming or sad or sharing that

then like those are the moments where you're like holy fuck that's what it is to be alive and be a human being like that's it right there that we've captured it you know you're probably also doing this thing where you write down your thoughts or whatever without even realizing you're doing it because like you know when you're at school or when you when I was at uni whatever and I had I've got all these ring binders at home with all my lecture notes but then in the margins or like stupid notes I've written to friends or like stupid drawings I've done of the lecturer or do you know what I mean like the things that I was bored now but I'm like well that's not not the important stuff but if you go back and you look at like your work notebook or your notes that you just take in meetings and

stuff it's the things that you do when you're bored where you're like uh I have zoned out. You're actually sort of zoning in. So that could be a good starting point. But yeah, maybe you, like if you actually really interrogate yourself, you'll be able to. And like, like you say, Rob, all of it is poetry. Like, what isn't poetry? I was going to say, I've only ever written one, like, poem, poem. I used to write a lot of poems as a kid because I was very into Roll Dole's revolting rhymes. And I knew them all off by heart and was my party piece. And so I thought poems had to be in this like, like, Roll Dole rhyming cuplets. I thought that's what a poem was.

was. And then I remember we did Paradise Lost at school and we couldn't like we could not get through it. Everyone was like, this is absolute dog shit. Like what is this? And eventually our teacher was like, right, everybody go outside, go away from somebody else and read it out loud. And then everyone came back being like, oh my God, it's so good. Like, oh, okay, we get it. Like, this is a fucking great poem. Anyway, the only thing I've ever properly written that was like was when I was broken up with and I wrote the most pretentious piece of poetry. And I found it the other day. And honestly, I wanted to, but I felt so ill. But I didn't delete it because I was like, oh, it's such a testament like how I was feeling at the time. And I, even though it's so, it's so dramatic and it's so

pretentious, it really speaks to like, um, how I was feeling. And I think, and I wasn't making it up those feelings. You know, I really, that is exactly how I felt and I felt that dramatic and that, that nuts. And it's valid. Yeah. I went home and I, and I went home and I found the only poem that I remember writing or I've ever got any evidence of is at school we were asked to write a poem and it could be about anything and I decided to write a poem

about the factory being built over a park so they were in like these small like I was seven like these like dramatic verses that would start with like the fountain, the lake sparkling and shining now lies dead and it was all about litter

and that's good because it's because I was absolutely obsessed with like the world and climate change and like I couldn't I was very like that was like my whole world and that was very much how I was feeling even though it's shite like it's it's cute and it's funny and I you know what I mean like it's there is no bad like there's no even if your breakup poem is really cliched like you felt you feel cliched when you're broken up with just like when like someone dies or what you find the words that you're saying are things that you that you've seen in a film and that you can't get it's it's it's

really hard to get away from them and that's like just as valid as coming up with like you know a new thought like what is it what is the thought of coming up with a new thought is maybe one of the reasons why I struggle to be creative sometimes because I'm always like I must come up with the new the new thought but I think stevie that you have new thoughts all the time thank you you're welcome uh you you say you say you say you say shit to me all the time that I'm like no one's no one's ever said that before or I don't And then they'll say it again, you know? And I think you're, if you sit down to be like, I think you've, I think you've hit,

inadvertently hit the nail on the head, which is if you sit down to write a new thought, like you'll be there all day. But if you just look in your back catalogue of things that you've already thought, or you just say to someone else, like, can you name a new thought I've had? They'll be like, yes, that nuts thing you said once on the bus, that time that you pointed to a tree and said, like, how do they hold their purses? Like, they haven't got any fingers. Like, you know, like, you know, like, people were.

be able to tell you, you know, but we're so obsessed with being like, okay, we're always looking outwards when we should be looking in, you know? Yes. Yeah, like, that's why I really liked that. I really liked that poem that you read about, like, the, like, the, the, the bit where you talked about how we're not going to see the beginning and we're not going to see the end. It was like, oh, yeah, like, I know that, but I've never heard it framed in that. Like, it's just very unique the way that you framed it. And also, you don't, you sound very much like you when you talk. It's not like you suddenly become this like,

I remember my English literature lecturer, so I had a voice, a normal voice, and whenever he'd read poems, he would put on this boy. It's so weird. And he'd do it for Chaucer, obviously, and he'd be like, oh, will he me do, really,

like, he'd go all, like, wispy with his, like, his throat. It was like, oh, that's, that's what poetry is. You have to go wispy with your throat. And equally, like, spoken word has that same, like, life, but inside me and outside. this box like you have this and it doesn't have to be that you know it's possible to present your

ideas that doesn't feel like it's a show or a you know and this is my spoken word voice you know like you can say it in a normal way terms of people listening like you kind of go oh well I don't I don't know if I want to be a poet or like I you know I work in marketing what why should I but like what's interesting is that I think when we talked about it on like an episode a few months ago when we did like how to be creative and it wasn't about like how to be creative and it wasn't about like how to be creative for a job. It was like how to just be like get more creativity in your life. I feel like that's almost like what you're talking about about it doesn't matter what you're doing it for. Just get it down because it will sort of nourish you in some way. And I'm going to ask you how important is it to just

write for yourself. It's the most important thing, isn't it? And a lot of the time like not thinking about who's going to who's going to, who's going to, if it's going to end up in a show or if it's going to end up in a book or if it's going to end up on a flipping thing on Twitter or something. It's just about when those ideas, if they come to you, just get them down as quick as you can and type it down or write it down. And then I just normally forget about it. And then a few days later, if the idea comes back to me, I'm like, oh yeah, I wrote that. And then you go back and read it with a fresh pair of eyes. And then it becomes very clear whether it's decent or not, because 95% of stuff that I write down is it doesn't resonate with me at all, whereas there's a bit of it that

does. And they're the bits that I latch onto. And I think everyone has these important. of these feelings that come over them. And it's just about trying to write it down, even if you don't think it's good language or whatever. It's just like flipping, get it down. How's your mum made you feel today? And don't worry about what the writing is. Just do it.

And one of the most powerful things I ever saw was like when my granny was on a deathbed and my mum said to her these simple words was like, go, you were such a good mum, you know, you were such a good mum to me. And it made me think about what I, would say to my parents, it made me, like,

I don't want them to have to be on their death beds before I say how good they've been, you know, and it was just stuff like that. And I think when it comes to family and, like the big stuff, like other people and friends, like I've got one that line in my show about, because I'm quite socially awkward and I find I'm suffering from like,

I get really stressed and worried. I'm a very sensitive person and I worry about what people think of me and things like that. And I think everyone does. But I mean, just one of the things that seem to resonate people was I wish I'd taking the time just to say to my friends, like, thanks for being my friend. I really like you, you know, I want you to know that I really like you, and I don't want you to ever feel like you're on your own. And if there's one thing that I could recommend is, like, phoning you and you're saying, I really like you, thanks so much, you know. And that's not poetry. What is

that? It's just stripped away human. Like, one of my favorite people is Daniel Johnston, the singer-songwriter, and he doesn't try. It just flows out of him. What would you say then to people who feel like it doesn't flow out of them? Or maybe that they do have these big feelings, but they don't know how to express them, or they have those moments that you're talking about and, you know, on a deathbed or seeing a red car on the street. And then you're like, then when it gets to actually trying to put it down on paper, that's when it fails them and they don't feel like they, you know, can express. They can't get down exactly what it was they wanted to try and say.

I don't know. I think that if you do it and it resonates with you, then, it's a good thing to do, whereas maybe you do it and it doesn't resonate with you, and then maybe that's not the thing, and maybe you need to go at it, go at it from a different form of art or just talking to someone. What you were saying before is almost sort of it, which is just like, it's the moment that you start judging it, then you're never going to do it. Like I remember, I've talked about a lot of the podcast in the past about how I used to get

given all these beautiful notebooks, and I used to always always. like really like lovely leather bound and I just they just sat in my cupboards for like years and years and years because I was like well I could never think of anything good enough to like I'd have to write a novel in one of those or I'd have to write like some really good thoughts that like will be I don't know unearthed in a thousand years and people will be like this is what they this is what people lived like and I got so stressed that I and but then at the moment I started to be like I'm just going to use those notebooks for like just actually making lists for my day then now it's like it kind of what's the word, demystifies all the process. And when I was writing my Edinbrew, show,

because I've only done two, with the second one, I was so stressed. My first one, I felt very, very, like I had to, I kept saying, I'm doing it for me, you know, but I couldn't. And I was like, but is it good? And I would, like, sit down and I was right. And then for my second one, I would make sure that I wrote pretty much everything on my phone notes, like on a bus while I was doing something else. So I'd trick myself into feeling like I wasn't doing this big grand thing that had like an ancestress line right up to these incredible comedians and incredible writers that I could never live up to. It was just me and like my thoughts. And I think it feels like one of the first steps is like being like, my thoughts are valid

and everything that I put down on a piece of paper is valid because it's mine. And if I'm not doing it for anyone to mark it or grade it, like we're taught like you were saying to us about at school you're literally taught from when you have your brain is forming you're taught that things are right or wrong and creativity is right and wrong and even if you do like a bit of creative writing someone will like scroll all over it which to be honest is also kind of how what it's like to make a living in the creative world people just scroll all over everything but for yourself like like I mean like scrap like if you don't like you were saying if you if you write a thought down you're like oh it doesn't really resonate maybe you could try like

scrapbooking or maybe you could try doodling and like you know start doodling when you're on the or when you're like watching TV or when like something so you're doing something else but you're just like sneakily getting a bit of like your soul out while well while it's not looking I would like to spend the whole day with you Rob but we do have to go uh go yeah go I was trying to be a bit more poetic about it but I was wondering if you had another poem to bring us home well this is for my mum it's about when she comes and visits me in London and I go and meet her at King's Cross and hopefully went over this is over, we will do that. It's called a platform. I stand on Kings Cross Platform 4, waiting for my mum to arrive on the 0912 from York. In my hands I hold a laminated A4 piece of white paper with the word, mum, clearly printed in the middle.

The train pulls in and the passengers are like, those who are not my mum walk past me. Grown men read my sign and continue on their journeys, ladies who fit the description look at me in a motherly way they know that they are not my mum but for a split second they think the sign might possibly be for them I wait patiently until a lady sees the sign stops and smiles oh that's lovely that's so sweet

that's beautiful that's sweet and so apt as well I think it's such a yeah for now that's all we want now. Yeah. Waiting. Just the privilege of waiting for somebody at a train station or indeed of being waited for, you know. Yeah. Somewhere and someone being there for you.

Oh, Lord, I've got a lot of emotions and I'm going to put them all down on paper and start my notebook. Yes. Thank you so much, Rob. That was absolutely genuinely an absolute pleasure. It really was. It was wonderful. And do follow Rob at Robert Orton on Twitter and also at Rob Orton podcast. And what's your Instagram?

Rob Orton, A-U-T-O-N. The podcast is called the Rob Orton Daily Podcast. And also, if you go on your website, a lot of your books are for sale, am I right? Yes, thank you. They are. Very much for sale at the moment. Getting that e-commerce out there. So the books of all Rob's previous shows and there's poetry.

Are they your illustrations in there? Yeah, yeah. You're absolutely fantastic. Wow. Wow. It's a very inspiring, just creatively in general, person. And also, we're at Nobody Panic. I'm at Stevie M. The S is a Fives. I'm at Tessa Coates. The email is Nobody Panic

Podcast at gmail.com. If you want to send us your poems, if you want to send us any suggestions, if you want to tell us, just tell us about your lockdown experience. If you want to vent how you're feeling and you don't know where else to put it and you haven't gone open micnight to go to. Come and send us your stuff. Please. We'll have a read. Again, any podcast episode suggestions, please. So yeah, if you want us to tackle something, then absolutely. let us know. And thank you so much. And we'll see you next week. Thank you so much, Rob. You've been absolutely amazing. Well, I'm fine. A wonderful guest you've been a joy. I feel so inspired. I hope you feel inspired at home. And we will see you next time. Bye-bye.