John Hegley

I was lucky enough to spend two hours on Saturday evening at the Stratford Circus (just between the Theatre Royal and the Stratford Picturehouse) listening to the poet JOHN HEGLEY perform loads of his poems to a delighted audience (one of whom was also my 7-year-old son, Thomas, who even performed one of the poems himself when John Hegley picked him out from the audience and asked him).

One of the poems Hegley performed was a variation on one of his most popular - essentially a simile poem about NEED. What I love about this poem is not only the wonderfully original approach he takes to composing similes, but also the fantastic way in which he subverts the conventions of RHYME to give the poem a rhythm that is typical of his idiosyncratic style.

Here is a previous version of the poem:

I need you like a novel needs a plot.
I need you like the greedy needs a lot.
I need you like a hovel needs a certain level of grottiness
to qualify.
I need you like acne cream needs spottiness.
Like a calendar needs a week.
Like a colander needs a leek.
Like people need to seek out what life on Mars is.
Like hospitals need vases.
I need you.
I need you like a zoo needs a giraffe.
I need you like a psycho needs a path.
I need you like King Arthur needed a table
that was for more than just for one.
I need you like a kiwi needs a fruit.
I need you like a wee wee needs a route out of the body.
I need you like Noddy needed little ears,
just for the contrast.
I need you like bone needs marrow.
I need you like straight needs narrow.
I need you like the broadest bean needs something else on the plate
before it can participate
in what you might describe as a decent meal.
I need you like a cappucino needs froth.
I need you like a candle needs a moth
if it’s going to burn its wings off.

Click here to visit the poet's website.

And click here to listen to the poet perform his poem, 'Jesus Isn't Just For Christmas'...