Jack Underwood is an abstract wordsmith whose poems almost feel like overheard snippets of a conversation that you don’t know the story behind. His talent lies in stopping you in your tracks, capturing your attention in a curious moment with a day-to-day feel.

Underwood asks young poets to imagine that “your poem is a complete stranger walking around a supermarket, tapping people on the shoulder, interrupting their day”. How do you involve your reader with the few words you lay before them? A poem is nothing without its audience, making the process of poetry a dialogue rather than a monologue.

Everyday ponderings are prevalent subjects that appear in Underwood’s works in strange forms, making them appear out-of-place and ever-evolving like the poem is running away with your thoughts. His collection ‘Happiness’ deals with sensations, from those as mundane as slicing into an unboiled egg to those that overpower, like the prevalence of death in daily life. Writing of such everyday thoughts brings poems to life by infusing them with a sense of ‘right now’. Often with a helping of self-deprecating humour, Underwood captures the things that captivate our thoughts. His first poem was about a pair of Adidas Gazelle trainers covered in biro graffiti.