Pete Doherty poetry reading

Pete Doherty returned to his poetic roots appearing at the Burns Festival this weekend.

Having played with Babyshambles at Homelands, Doherty jetted up to Ayr to take part in the event to mark influential Scottish poet Robert Burns.

Although Doherty was there to concentrate on his poetry, and began his appearance by putting his composition ‘East Of Eden' put to music, he played several of his songs including ‘Can't Stand Me Now' and a cover of ‘I Fought The Law' for the sold out crowd, The Sunday Herald reports.

The poetry event echoes one of Doherty's first ever live performances, when aged 16 he went to Moscow to read poetry at a British Council event.

Although his musical contributions meant that the star's performance at the Burns event wasn't exactly a traditional reading, he was praised from former Fairground Attraction singer Eddi Reader, whose latest album is a collection of Burns' songs.

“Doherty is a wordsmith in the tradition of Burns and the likes of Leonard Cohen,” she said. “Burns wrote his poems as a radical young man â€" about being dumped or just loving a bit of countryside â€" and it's great that Doherty is showing other young men, who obviously feel the same emotions, that poetry can be really important at those times.”document.write(unescape("