Rain or shine, you can always take shelter in the poetry tent. It’s cool in every sense of the word. On Friday during glorious weather at the Latitude festival there were clearly a few there seeking refuge from the heat of the day, some even wearing wellies in anticipation of rains to come. I bumped into a seasoned former newspaper colleague who marvelled at and was delighted by the incisive political wit of Elvis McGonagall. The crowds piled in for Hollie McNish, with her YouTube hits on breastfeeding and immigration fast making her poetry’s national treasure. And the roar that concluded Rob Auton’s The Sky Show represented “a Latitude moment”, according to compere and curator of the festival’s comprehensive poetry lineup, Luke Wright.

If size matters, it seems there is no comparison between Latitude’s lengthy poetry list, starting at 11am and finishing after midnight, and Glastonbury’s. Hollie McNish left us in no doubt about this during her set. She is a poet with almost universal appeal, but with some online detractors from rightwing male websites who apparently object to her feminist views about gender images on MTV. She told us how much she delights in and values her two grandmothers, for their support of her, as well as one’s persistent curiosity about sex. After a fine sequence of poems about pregnancy, giving birth and getting her body back afterwards, she finished with two of her greatest hits, both full of anger and commonsense. Her protest poem about breastfeeding in public and the looks you get, ‘Embarrassed’, has notched up 1.2 million hits on YouTube. So many unarguable lines: “I’m getting tired of discretion and being polite … in this country are billboards covered in tits … I’m not trying to parade it … I’m sure all the milkmakers love all the fuss … for God’s sake, Jesus drank it.” ‘Mathematics’ (even more hits, 1.8 million) interrogates the anti-immigration arguments and finds them wanting. She received a standing ovation.  

Rob Auton is undoubtedly a different kind of performer, if not a one-off.  His Sky Show was a big hit at Edinburgh last year. Most of his act may not be poetry as some of us know it, but it’s hard to see what other category it could possibly fit into. Poetry should be grateful to have him. The offbeat way Auton sees things, he could be a space alien, or at least someone who has woken from a long spell of amnesia to find the world different to how he remembered it, and a deeply unsettling place. He points out how odd it is that there are two newspapers called the Sun and the Star, “when they’re the same thing”, and that “I’ve never seen a bird having sex with a bee.” Panting, out of breath, after a long sketch that ends with him declaring: “Religion’s just a typo!” and then dashing in and out of the audience, he concludes with a long, lyrical piece about erecting a tower of stools and ladders, stairways and escalators that would take him to the moon, even though he is afraid of heights. Now that’s poetry; no doubt about it.

Elvis McGonagall was in his element in the poetry tent, complaining about a camper pissing on his tent at Glastonbury – “it wouldn’t happen at Latitude”- and enjoying the vocal attentions of two Scotsmen in the audience who showed their appreciation by bringing him some Irn Bru during the performance. There are undoubtedly a few things that get McGonagall’s goat. Iain Duncan Smith for claiming he could subsist on £53 a week - “Down the dole, in his strawberry cords”;  Jamie Oliver and cooking programmes in general; that “self-loathing Frenchman” Nigel Farage “who’s been sent over here to fuck with our minds”. He also has observations about those Scots swithering about independence and whether to opt for the “Och Ikea” Scandinavian model; and takes a dim view of second home owners and Lycra-clad cyclists cluttering up where he lives “in rural Penury in Dorset, twinned with Le Squalour in France.” It was hot enough on the stage in the tent for him to remove his trademark tartan jacket. But in other respects McGonagall never lost his cool, always delivering his acid asides with a smile.

Another Friday performer, Jess Green, has had a huge YouTube hit with a poem about the state of the nation’s education, addressed to Michael Gove. Recent political events and the education secretary’s departure have maybe achieved its goal. “That’s the power of poetry!” cried Luke Wright, in introducing her. Let’s hope she doesn’t have to adapt it for Gove’s successor. Other performers on Friday included Molly Naylor, already nostalgic at the age of 31 about the boat that took her to school, and for Woolworths, Our Price, and her CD collection; and actor and poet Katie Bonner, whose long, thoughtful pieces included a poignant one about her brother.

Luke Wright, a generous and enthusiastic compere and assured poet, kicked off Friday with a modest number of his own poems, including his affectionate ode to the much-maligned A12 bordering the festival site. He had lined up poetry names of the calibre of Gillian Clarke, Roger McGough, Lemn Sissay, Ben Okri, Dizraeli, Scroobius Pip, Salena Godden, Luke Kennard, and many, many more for the remaining two days of Latitude. Let’s hope many more uncommitted festivalgoers will pop their heads into the poetry tent – and get hooked. I’m betting there’ll be quite a few.