If I do a poetry reading I want people to walk out and say they feel better for having been there - not because you've done a comedy performance but because you're talking about your father dying or having young children, things that touch your soul.

The form of some of his verse it has been claimed has been influenced by his experience of writing song lyrics. The Hypochondriac (The Imaginary Invalid) was staged at the Liverpool Playhouse in July 2009. Now Press Return incorporated several novel themes including user-defined elements to the poem lines which changed their order (and meaning) every few seconds and text which wrote itself in a spiral around the screen.

Roger Joseph McGough CBE FRSL (born 9 November 1937) is an English performance poet broadcaster children's author and playwright. He is an honorary fellow of Liverpool John Moores University and President of the Poetry Society.