Hello, Lauren LeVern here.

Desert Island Discs is taking its usual Easter break at the moment,

so to keep you entertained in the meantime,

we've chosen some fabulous editions from our back catalog for you.

As usual, this is a podcast,

so the music has been shortened for rights reasons.

We do hope you enjoy listening.

My cast away this week is John Cooper Clarke.

Nicknamed the Bard of Solford,

he first started writing poems at the age of 12.

By 14, it was all he wanted to do.

In the early 1970s, his dream came true,

though the reality of being a professional poet

wasn't exactly words with emotion recollected in tranquility.

Bernard Mann gave him his first paid club gig,

and he went on to earn his stripes by surviving showers of flam and bottles

to share stages with the likes of the Sex Pistols,

Buscox and Susie in the Banshees.

He has been punk's poet laureate ever since.

He says poetry out of any art is the only one that everyone has a go at.

You don't need a load of expensive equipment

or a musical instrument or tap dancing lessons.

...