It's always nice to be asked to write a poem about something that, in your heart, you'd want to write about anyway. You can imagine my pleasure when an adverting agency approached me to write a love poem to the potato . Nice commission.

The Waste and Resources Action Project (WRAP) have a campaign called Love Food Hate Waste (LFHW) whose aim is to encourage us all to throw less good stuff away. Collectively, apparently, we chuck away as much as we eat. Which is criminal. Although not prosecutable.

My first idea for a poem is called The Whole Potato but I soon realised this wouldn't fit the brief but I wrote it anyway, for the joy of it. The brief was pretty tight: to write a 20-second poem that communicated not just love for the potato but abhorrence of the thought of wasting it - plus advice about what to do with spuds that have sprouted and the fact that mashed potato can be frozen and used again. A big ask, but I think I managed it in the 2nd poem.

The Whole Potato

I love the whole potato, skin and all,

the poe, the tay, the toe, it's criminal

to throw even a bit of it away

say, whoa! say hey! say whoa! hey whoa!

don't throw away the poe tay toe

do not betray the poe, the tay,

you know it's not the way to go, no way

you must be true to toe poe tay

to total poe and tay and toe,

the toe and tal of total too,

but not the be the tray the al 

of betrayal, stay with the bee, the ing,

of being true, don't be the crim

the in the all  of criminal

but love the whole po-ta-to, skin and all

Oh potato

No part of you’s inedible – though all of you’s inaudible

The taste of you’s incredible – the price of you’s affordable

No spud is dud – If you get sprouty

I don’t go all throwy-outy

But focus all my passion

Into peeling and to mashing

I still need you – so I freeze you – 

Saying softly, ‘see you later, mashed potater’

In the first of these poems there was great temptation to bring in the Tao of Potato, but I resisted. I feel that's another poem in itself. The while process has made me realise there are more potato poems to be written. Tasty Nightshade is the title of another one. Playing the Tuber is another, in the Root Section of the Earth Orchestra.

There's so much to be done. So much still to be said.