Prior to making his name as a poet during the punk era, John worked variously as a bookie’s runner, an apprentice car mechanic, a cutter in the clothes trade, a trainee printer, a lab technician, and a firewatcher in Plymouth's naval dockyard. In November 2019 Clarke was a participant, alongside Phill Jupitus, in BBC's Celebrity Antiques Road Trip. I was born one year after JCC and about three miles from where he was born, so it was pretty obvious this was going to resonate with me. I WANNA BE YOURS is a memoir, covering his extraordinary life, from childhood through to parenthood, with people from his own family (so close to being a Beatles tribute group), to the time that 2-fifths of the Velvet Underground were living under his roof.

I also enjoyed “I’ve Fallen in Love with My Wife,” written in 11 stanzas, most ending with the title. Not so sure about the faux cockney rhyming slang - it never works if it needs to be explained - but I did like the "scam or scamolas" that were frequently commented upon. I would love to do an essay on this poetry collection in comparison to Ten Years in an Open-Necked shirt. Great guy John Cooper Clarke, I remember him on TV in the 1970s looking very, very cool reading 'Kung fu International' and 'Beasley Street'.

I especially enjoyed this section for the memories it brought back for me of those days in West Yorkshire! Clarke is unashamed to tell it like it was (for him), to drop names, to joke and tease, and even to give some clever and interesting social perspective to the post war years in terms of style and the way his generation and mine (boom and Blank--he's got about 12 years on me) absorbed and carried on our culture through film, TV, music, and then style and books. Clarke has his unreconstructed moments – there is jovial mention of “whores” and “nancy-boys” – but any mockery is at his own expense. Upon receipt, Clarke commented: "Now I'm a doctor, finally my dream of opening a cosmetic surgery business can become a reality.

A fan of the show for 60 years, he described it as having "all the finality of a suicide note, without the actual obligation of topping yourself". Here, that voice takes a while to tune into, for it’s strange to have this dandified poet suddenly present himself in the plain clothes of prose. I think Mr Clarke was given too much freedom with this meandering diary with a tendency to show off.Whether you like him or not he’s a poet that’s cool enough to get on the TV and perform, poetry could do with more rockstars. Reading about his adventures on tour around the world with various groups and artists is to enjoy a colourful whirlwind of people and places, entertainingly described. Before his beatification as “the Bard of Salford” (though he prefers “the bargain-basement Baudelaire”), Clarke was variously a bookie’s runner, an apprentice car mechanic, a cutter in the rag trade, a lab technician, a fire-watcher at a naval dockyard and a trainee printer.

Also, while the early years are described in loving detail, the last couple of decades are taken at something of a sprint. The trickster of poetry never disappoints and reminds us that poetry is real life and thus available to all and a form of such unlimited scope. not bad for a sickly Salford boy punk poet, who regularly appears on 9 out of ten cats enjoy cool countdown. When the teenage John Cooper Clarke announced he wanted to be a poet, his alarmed parents asked for examples of people who had made a living from it. how on every tour as soon as he checked into a hotel the priority was to get heroin, there's a touching story about how Nico gets him a friend to help supply him and he realises later it was Chet Baker,the jazz trumpeter,fallen on hard times.

This memoir covers an extraordinary life, filled with remarkable personalities: from Nico to Chuck Berry, from all the great punks to Bernard Manning, and on to more recent fans and collaborators Alex Turner and Plan B. The book's cover illustration is by Sir Peter Blake, which seems hugely appropriate, given that Blake is probably best known as the designer for the cover of The Beatles' album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

The lists of people he knows and has worked with is impressive, from Bernard Manning to Gil Scot-Heron, from The Clash to Nico, from Plan B to Chuck Berry to list a very few. I Wanna Be Yours covers an extraordinary life, filled with remarkable personalities: from Nico to Chuck Berry, from all the great punks to Bernard Manning, and on to more recent fans and collaborators Alex Turner and Plan B who have championed his work. Clarke , Hoyt Post , Henry Allen Chaney , John Adams Brooks , William Dudley Fuller , James Reasoner , Marquis Eaton , Herschel Bouton Lazell , Richard W. As his career took off, he modelled himself on Anthony Newley’s titular character in the film The Small World of Sammy Lee, swanking around Soho as “a wise-cracking spieler .I appreciate that Clarke probably feels that these details are a big part of his most formative years but I felt it could have been cut down.