Frank Burton, interviewed by Ross Marx of Gobstopper Magazine:

So, Collected Words: what’s it all about?

It’s a poetry album. That is to say, it’s not an audio version of a book – this is the one and only product. OK, so it’s not the most popular form – how many people out there can name five poetry albums? Not many, I’m guessing.

There are two ways of looking at this: you could say that the form isn’t massively successful, and therefore it’s a bad idea, or you can say it’s a territory reserved almost exclusively for mavericks. I’m an optimist, so I’m going with the second option. Look at it this way: Jim Morrison and Mark E. Smith have both released poetry albums, so surely I can’t be that crazy.

Who are your influences?

I’m influenced by everything – other people, life experiences, literature, film. Music’s a big one. If you ask me who I think the greatest poets of the twentieth century were, I’ll be talking about Bob Dylan, Morrissey and Gill Scott Heron before I even mention any "proper poets". These are the people who’ve had the bigger cultural impact, and mean a lot more to me personally than any written verse. That’s not to say I’m not influenced by other poets. Again, there are load of influences in there – Charles Bukowski, Sylvia Plath, Roger McGough – and my dad (the poet, Philip Burton).

You’ve been compared to John Cooper Clarke in the past...

When I was starting out, I was like an inferior Cooper Clarke tribute act. I still rate the guy very highly, although I’m pleased to say I’ve developed my own style. Collected Words is a big departure from the kind of stuff I used to do. Structurally, it’s totally different. I’ve also lost a lot of my Lancashire accent, having lived on the south coast of England for the last six years. Losing it altogether is one of my worst nightmares, actually. Sometimes I wake up screaming – in a southern accent.

What about hip hop?

Well, I’m not a rapper, and I’m not really influenced by rap, but sure, hip hop’s OK. Trouble is, there’s so much of it about, and most of it’s absolute rubbish. That said, there’s some great stuff coming out of the UK right now – "fish n´ chip hop", to give it its proper name. Roots Manuva is a genius. I think we may well be having our golden age of hip hop over here at the moment. America had theirs twenty-five years ago.

It’s a funny thing, but rap suffers from the same problems that poetry does, only in reverse. The poetry scene suffers badly at the hands of literary snobbery, while the hip hop scene suffers from a bad case of inverted snobbery. Too much of it celebrates the lowest common denominator, while anyone with anything intelligent or original to say gets pushed to the sidelines. The best rappers are the ones who turn away from all that, and tell their own stories, in their own way.

Do you think poetry ought to be as significant as music?

Well, that’s a tough one. It’s difficult to compare the two, as they’re completely different things. Of course, there is a point at which the two combine, in the form of songwriting. The difference is, songwriters can get away with writing bad lyrics that are full of clichés and don’t really mean anything, as long as they perform it well, and the music sounds good. Poets don’t have that privilege, because poetry is just words and nothing else. That is poetry’s great strength, and it’s something that needs to be exploited more.

Also, if poetry wants to compete with music, we need to get rid of all this snobbery and pretentiousness – this idea that poetry is only for the educated elites. I’m not saying it’s my mission to dismantle this myth. It’s certainly not the focal point of what I do. If someone listens to my album, or sees me perform live, and they come away having been made to look at the world in a different way, then I’ll have achieved what I set out to achieve. If they look at poetry in a different way, that’s a bonus.

There are some highly surreal moments on the album. Where do they all come from?

I don’t know. I try not to analyse it too much in case it destroys the whole process. I also think it’s important to note that all my surreal poems start off with a firm grounding in reality. They have to, otherwise they wouldn’t work. As long as you have that grounding in reality you can be as crazy as you like.

There’s also a very political element to the album. Were you conscious of this when you were writing it?

Yes and no. No in the sense that I don’t sit down and intentionally write a political poem, but often it ends up that way. At the same time, I’m very careful not to start preaching to the converted. As I say, I think poetry is about changing people’s ideas. If all you’re doing is reinforcing ideas that people have already got, then you’re not doing it properly.

Thanks a lot. Any plans for a follow-up any time soon?

Sort of. I’m in the process of putting together a short story collection. Just like Collected Words, it’s going to be a combination of different styles and influences – some of it’s funny, some of it’s dark, and some of it’s totally off the scale. Watch out for it, that’s all I can say.