BUS passengers will be invited to try their hand at poetry next week.

Swindon community poet Tony Hillier will be hopping between Thamesdown Transport buses from Monday in a bid to inspire commuters and families to try their hand at writing verse.

The best efforts may end up being printed on the town’s buses if the week-long project proves a success.

Mr Hillier, 58, from Farriers Close, in the town centre, stressed he would not bother passengers during the Poems On The Buses scheme, but would urge willing passengers to put pen to paper or express themselves verbally.

The poet is no stranger to trying to inspire people to write, and added: “Usually people are very friendly and co-operative. They give it a try and they like the outcome.

“It’s a piece of magic that happens because it’s just something new and novel and they’re being listened to and noticed.

“Some people find poetry fruitful in times like weddings and funerals, but poetry can also come through an every day bus journey.

“There’s more to life than going to work and back every day – try something new.”

Mr Hillier said poems could focus on current affairs, the bus journey, the weather or anything that was going on in the passengers’ lives.

He added he would also read out some of the nation’s best known-poems as part of the scheme, which is being run as part of the Swindon Does Arts initiative.

Mr Hillier is Swindon Council’s poet-in-residence and said the scheme had been inspired by the display of sections of poems at London Underground stations.

And he wrote a poem for the Adver to mark the event – Bus Cue – which we have printed.

Previous projects run by Mr Hillier have included offering people £1 to listen to his poems and turning the experiences of Swindon’s railway workers into verse.

Paul Jenkins, the managing director of Thamesdown Transport, said: “We are interested in the thoughts of our customers; whether it is about the day’s journey to work or about the service we provide in general – or anything else that is on their minds, for that matter.”

The company will make a decision on whether to use some passengers’ poems on the sides of buses when it had assessed the results of the project.