On Manchester…
“Manchester is ultimately a very romantic city. It rains every day and has this delicious shade of pearl grey. I think that sunshine breeds a sort of clodhopping outdoor sort of attitude that’s an anathema to most sorts of literature. There’s a certain kind of nice uptightness about Manchester – it goes way beyond the English reserve and gets more into the realms of anal retention. It’s good really…” *
On Salford…
“I used to think trees were dirty because when I was a kid in Salford you’d climb them and come off filthy; it was like you’d been up a chimney…”
On Salford…
“My old school, the place where I grew up, even the place where my mother was re-housed after our old place was knocked down…I’m into two generations of architectural demolition here…everything I knew has been knocked down twice!”
On Being John Cooper Clarke…
“I never go out in daytime. The minute any solar illumination exposes my complexion I just don’t make sense. I’ve caught myself in shop windows and thought ‘How ghastly!’…I look like I ought to be six feet under, but it all makes sense under an electric lightshade – I look like a regular guy!” *
On being awarded a Honorary Doctorate from the University of Salford 2013…
“To be called ‘Doctor’, it’s the apex of every ambition I ever had…now, finally, that cosmetic surgery business can become a reality!…I’ve had it for three quarters of an hour and already people are treating me with the respect that I deserve.”
On Punk…
“It did feel like a very courageous thing to do at the time because punk wasn’t meant to be intellectual, reflective and all the things that poetry were meant to be; so I had to invent this thing called ‘punk poetry’…” *
On Updating Beasley Street To Beasley Boulevard…
“A poetry programme on Radio 4 asked me to do Beasley Street but no-one particularly wants to hear that again. So I thought I’d re-write it, give it a makeover – like what happens to neighbourhoods. I just tarted the place up…”
On being poetry royalty…
“I don’t know what I did that was so right, but I’m pretty much part of all that now. You can talk about ‘alternative’ but really I’m a pillar of the establishment. I get invited to read at all these things, like the Cheltenham Arts festival and places like that. In fact, I can’t think of a living poet who I haven’t done shows with.
“You meet all these Poets with a capital ‘P’, whose names will be forever engraved in marble and they’re all regular guys. After all, they’re in the same game as me. At the end of the day it’s sort of ‘What rhymes with orange?’… ‘door hinge’…Take it from me that’s the nearest thing you’ll ever get to rhyme with orange. It’s a bit laboured, but that’s the job isn’t it?…I refer to it as ‘poetry’, then for anyone who comes along and gets a bit of a laugh, which they usually do, it’s a bonus…” *
On Sugar Puffs Adverts…
“I just put that down as being serious pop art. They were dead tentative because they think that if you’re an ‘artist’ you’re going to be really insulted to be asked to work in the world of ‘commerce’. But it’s a really stupid romantic idea of the kind of person you’re going to be. They said ‘How do you feel about advertising Sugar Puffs?’…And I’m, like, ‘Yeah! Is the Honey Monster going to be in it? Right what time do you want me there!’…” *
On Being A Potential Poet Laureate…
“If I’m still around when Prince Charles is king I reckon I’ll be Poet Laureate…I reckon he’ll swing for me – he’s turned out to be a good’n, has Charles. I love that kid!” *
On Women…
“Shelley used to do gigs. He was like a pop star in his day and had an all female audience. That’s what I was after, the adulation of women. The money was a bonus really. I just liked the idea that girls were paying to get into the same room as me!
“Poetry groupies? Of course. All women love wimps…‘little boy lost’, you know… ‘Please take me home and look after me for the rest of my life’. Women love it – I went straight for the sympathy; straight for the mother that lies dormant in all women…” *
*Quotes taken from an interview with Avant magazine March 1990
See also:
John Cooper Clarke – who is he, what was he doing on Bury New Road and what has he changed? click here
See also John Cooper Clarke On Life In Higher Broughton – click here
