Poetry in motion as Felix rocks on wood

Although Dennis might once have matched Heffner's voracious appetite for women and hedonism, these days you are more likely to find him wandering the Forest of Dennis he is planting in Warwickshire and writing poems.

Despite the now sedate lifestyle, it is easy to wonder if a man who has estimated he is worth somewhere

between 400m to 700m (official sources estimate

it at 715m), a former

crack cocaine addict who at his wildest blew 100,000 a day on drugs and

prostitutes, and who is embarking on a tour called Did I Mention the Free Wine? might indulge himself when on the road.

"Is it debauched when I go on tour?" asks Felix Dennis, with a smile.

"If every night was debauched and crazy, I wouldn't get through many nights.

"Anyway, I want to give people a great evening's entertainment and as we get more experienced, we get better at it.

"It's like nothing else you've ever seen – there's special lighting, sound effects, music, animation, and me with about 40-odd poems."

With Gordon Gecko about to make a triumphant return to cinema screens in the sequel to the film, Wall Street, it is impossible not to think of the selling machine alpha male who dominated the Eighties – the decade when Dennis really made his money.

Dennis has 15 minutes to talk about the tour, 15 minutes booked months in advance, and while he is happy to chat and is a very engaging presence, there is no hiding from the fact that Dennis is always selling.

He was always excellent at it and what he is selling now is poetry.

"I get people to buy lots of magazines, that's what I do. It's very difficult to get people to buy books of poetry in any kind of quantity – if you sell 200 to 300 you're doing well.

"Some of my books have been re-published four times, some of them have sold more than 10,000," says Dennis – and the strange thing is, it doesn't sound as if he's boasting. Just as Sir Alan Sugar does his "I built myself up from a barrow boy" act, he can get away with it, because it's true.

Similarly, Dennis, who was reported to be developing an idea along the lines of The Apprentice with ITV, does shift poetry in the kind of mass volume of which he is boasting.

Dennis, 63, began publishing in inauspicious fashion with his underground publication, Oz – a huge hit with fans, including John Lennon, but less popular with the Establishment.

In 1971, he was sent to prison, along with two other publishers, for conspiracy to corrupt and deprave – Dennis's sentence was more lenient than the others' because the judge questioned his intelligence, believing he wasn't capable of fully understanding what he was doing.

In prison, Dennis discovered his determination to find fortune and success and, on his release, set up a publishing company.

Over the years, Maxim, Men's Fitness, The Week, Viz were all added to a hugely expanding portfolio which has seen him at the publishing helm of hundreds of titles. But the ones of which he is most proud are those poetry books.

In 2002, A Glass Half Full, became his first success in the more rarefied world of poetry. Other collections followed, including Lone Wolf and When Jack Sued Jill, then, last year, he was approached by the Tree Council and asked to put together an anthology.

It so happened that an obsession for the past decade or so has been planting a huge forest near his Warwickshire estate where he has been finding inspiration among the trees.

"I walk around the woods constantly and I always have a pad that I'm scribbling in if a line or an idea comes to me," says Dennis.

"I had started to write a lot about the woods and about being in nature, and after the Tree Council approached me, I started to look for poems that would fit that brief."

Tales from the Woods, published this month, is being launched with a UK tour and the book hits the streets with ringing endorsements from,

among others, Mick Jagger, Stephen Fry, Melvyn Bragg and Tom Wolfe.

This is in spite of the fact that Dennis operates in the popular – and, therefore, sometimes critically derided end of the poetry spectrum – sticking resolutely to writing verse.

"I get some enjoyment from reading free verse, but nothing like the pleasure

I get from structured verse," he says.

"It has worked for the English language for 550 years; why should it suddenly not be respected? It's a question of fashion, pure

and simple.

"This idea that free verse is somehow more intellectually superior is nonsensical, illogical. People enjoy reading structured verse – and if they come to my readings, they will definitely enjoy hearing it.

"And we always have very nice free wine on the tour."

Consummate salesman.

n Did I Mention the Free Wine? Felix Dennis, The Birdcage, Leeds, Mon, October 4, 7pm. Tickets, www.felixdennis.com or call the ticket hotline on 0844 815 5870.