“I didn’t realize that you wrote such bloody awful poetry,” sang Morrissey in 1987. And indeed, the history of musicians with poetic aspirations is a long and patchy one. This year has already seen the publication of a couple of collections of poetry by famous musicians – we recently got hold of a copy of System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian’s book Glaring Through Oblivion, and Tom Waits has just published a collaboration with photographer Michael O’Brien called Hard Ground. Writing lyrics is a very different skill to writing effective poems, and the two disciplines rarely coincide. With this in mind, here’s a look at the best and the worst of musicians in poetry – starting with five whose work really should have stayed in their notebooks. … Read More