WHEN I started performing poetry on stage as Attila the Stockbroker 37 years ago, I took as my manifesto a quote from the legendary radical poet Adrian Mitchell, “Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people.”

Mitchell got it spot on. At its best, poetry can lift your spirit, inspire you to action, fill your heart with anger, sadness, empathy and love.

At its worst, sadly, it is a ghastly exercise in pseudo-intellectual word-wanking completely divorced from everyday reality and, so often, that kind of poetry is what has been imposed upon reluctant school students, especially those of my generation, leaving them cold, bored and determined to spend the rest of their lives avoiding poetry like the plague.