Ian McMillan

What person who's never written a poem before in their life wrote this?

But I know, like a football match, it can be improved and things can happen within it if you leave them for long enough.

So it was a really interesting experience.

That's a great image.

I hadn't thought of that before.

The half-time talk, it is that because, as you say, you know, a team can be terrible in the first half and then come out in the second half and they're better.

So my half-time talk is, come on, Macmillan, come on, you've done this before.

Then I put my shoes on and I'll go for a walk because the act of walking for me helps me to think that it's around the village that I've always lived in.

So I see these familiar landmarks and in a sense, I'm not seeing them, but the poem is rumbling away in my head.

I might text myself a word or two and it will start to get better.

I mean, the deadline helps, you know, knowing that you have to write a poem for a certain time really does help.

It puts the mind really at its metal and it kind of heats up your thinking.

I would always recommend to any creative person, go for a stroll sometimes.

Because, you know, writing is about rhythm and walking is about rhythm, the rhythm of the breathing, the rhythm of your feet, the sun going around the sky, the weather changing, you know, all that rhythm, although it's not linguistic, it can help you to find rhythm.

Well, definitely.

I listen to music all the time.

When I'm on my stroll, I listen to a lot of jazz, avant-garde music, and I think that somehow what the musician can do that I'm always jealous of is, particularly in instrumental music, they can write something that has no language in it.

So what I mean is, you know, I'm going to start writing a poem about football, so I'll use words like football, I'll use goal, I'll use net, and each of those words has got so many things hanging on it.

But if I hear a piece of instrumental jazz, it doesn't refer to anything and it gives me a kind of freedom.

I've been to one of the football museums where you can have a go at being a commentator.