Ian McMillan

You think, all right, I'm a wordsmith, I can make things up as I go along, but you find that you can't, so I'm always in awe.

and the commentators on the radio in particular who can just tell you what's happening and use wonderful poetic phrases.

I think so.

I think poetry and football are so similar because they have rules that you can break.

They have a shape.

The football match has got 90 minutes with a break in the middle and a bit of extra time.

And the poem has a shape.

And, you know, I like poems with shapes.

I like sonnets.

I like haiku.

I like villanelles.

But then I also like the freedom of free verse.

But the idea that actually it's not that free because you end the line at the end of the line and there's this white space at the edge.

You can sometimes write it for your voice.

So that is a kind of form.

And also I like a poem that surprises me.

Suddenly, perhaps towards the end, there's an amazing line.

You think, gosh, I wasn't expecting that.

And it's just like that with football.

You know, you'll play a team that you should beat and they thrash you 5-0.