I’m jealous of songwriters. Cheap rhymes, pointless repetition, clichés, word choices simply to fit the metre: they get away with all of the poetry sins. Worse than that, some of my favourite musicians do this and still surprise and convey powerful emotion.

Of course, compared to poets, songwriters have the advantages of music, voice and performance to convey meaning. As a spoken word artist, I try to capture this intersection of words and delivery, and emulate these advantages without losing the power of poetry.