I know Ian McMillan quiet well, even though I have never met him. Or so it seems, after years of reading his poetry and prose.

It's a Tuesday ritual here in the office for each member of staff to read his column in our sister paper, the Yorkshire Post - partly for entertainment, partly for educational purposes.

And he's a good teacher, Mr McMillan.

He teaches us that his home town of Darfield is a lot like Driffield, a place where ordinary people do ordinary things which would go unrecorded had he not written about them.

He also teaches us how the power of words and language can lift the mundane and make it appear extraordinary, even memorable.

Years ago, I read in one of his books a seemingly insignificant little tale about two gerbils watching his wife as she did the ironing, their heads moving in unison from side to side to the rhythm of her strokes.

I can't remember the words he used to describe the scene or the name of the book in which they featured, yet I still laugh when I recall the image of those two family pets, mesmerised by a simple household chore.
Because his language touched a chord.

That's the power of words for you and that's the strength of Mr McMillan's writing and a talent which elevates him above many other people who make their living from writing (including me).

Talking Myself Home - My Life in Verses is full of examples of exciting word power Mr McMillan walks us via poetry through his personal story.
His work is warm, charming, accessible and in many ways friendly, as if was writing to a mate. His topics are many and varied, from poems about his parents, their love for each other and their deaths to the formation of Barnsley's first folk rock group, his time working in a tennis ball factory, his school days and his trip across America on a Greyhound bus.

The poems are often quite playful but with hidden edge, and some of his lines are nothing short of sublime, such as 'The sky cracks a little to let in a line of light that will become today'.

McMillan also stands out from the crowded poetry market place in the way he uses repetition and rhythm to emphasise the point he is making, his words chugging along like the rhythmic movement of the trains about which he writes and on which he travels so often.

Mr McMillan is often portrayed as a jovial poetic troll and, indeed, describes himself as the Beat Generation Les Dawson. But, with this collection of poems, he mostly steps aside from those flippant tags, becoming less of a Yorkshire pudding and more of a Yorkshire Poet Laureate. Which is exactly the reason that this book will appeal to a wide cross section of readers.