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So what do you do when you're a poet? Well, generally I'll find that I have a few lines in my head and I'll write them down maybe on the back of an envelope or a bit of paper or something in my pocket.Ìý
Maybe I won't do anything with them for ages, they'll just lie around around my room. I'll always remember one time I had to do a reading on a train. I asked this woman if she'd like me to read her a poem and she says, "Sure." I read her a poem and she listens to it and says it's very nice, she says, "Thanks," and I turn to walk off.
And then for some reason, I don't know why, I turned round and said to her, "Would you like to hear another poem?" And she said, "Oh go on then." I picked this random poem from my head, called Carbon Dating and read it to her. I have an A to Z of categories and this one I file under Love, Loss And Fossil Fuels.
I read this poem to her, I come to the end of the poem and she starts crying. I'm kind of freaked out because this has never happened to me before, this intense emotional experience that this woman is having and all I've done is read her this 12-line poem.
I say, "Oh, I'm really sorry. Have I said something? I didn't mean to upset you."Ìý And she says, "No, no, it's just my husband died two days ago and that poem absolutely sums up how I feel."
For me that was just an amazing experience. I don't know why I picked that poem to read to her. There was nothing that she'd said to me previously, I just chose it because it's one of my poems that I liked and I thought I'd read it to her. | 
