Grayson Perry, who is chairing this year’s Ted Hughes award judging panel, has revealed that he loves the “bitter-sweet” poetry and “emotional constipation” of Philip Larkin.

In an interview with the Poetry Society, the Turner prize-winning artist said:  “Like many embittered men of my age, I’m heavily into Larkin; it is men on the whole who like Larkin. I keep his Collected Poems beside the bed. I like the famous ones: the ‘arrow-shower’ in the final stanza of ‘The Whitsun Weddings’ is amazing; I love the idea of this mundane train journey taken into the epic. His poems are incredibly poignant, so bitter-sweet, aren’t they? He’s the most loved of late twentieth-century poets because he embodies the emotional constipation of the English male, at the same time as being the most poignant of late twentieth-century poets.”

Perry has also written a poem of his own, about a fictional woman called Julie, born in 1953. He describes it as “a long, biographical poem, from birth to death”.

In looking for a Ted Hughes award winner, he said: “My role is to represent the interested person on the street. But, yes, choosing a winner will be an emotional decision for me: does the work engage me? Does it hit me in the heart? The best poetry tickles you, then sucker-punches you, which is what I try to do in my work. Though I think humour gets a bad rap – people often think that poetry has to be about our deepest feelings. Without humour, your vision is skewed. You have to have both: hilarious and heart-breaking.”

The shortlist for Ted Hughes Award 2014 has now been published, and the winner will be announced soon, on 2 April. You can read the full Grayson Perry interview on the Poetry Society website