02 February 2021
Newsdesk
The 34-year-old singer - who shot to fame as a member of the 'Beat Again' boy band - has been releasing his own poetry amid the coronavirus pandemic as an escape and way of "expression".
And his fans loved it so much, he plans to follow in the footsteps of Lana Del Rey, who released an audiobook version of her poetry collection, 'Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass’, last year.
Oritse told the Daily Star newspaper's Wired column: "The spoken word has been my form of escapism as well as expression.
"It has allowed me to make sense of what is going on in my head about the crazy times that we are in, and a lot of fans have said how much they have enjoyed it.
"I've found a new talent and a passion that I plan on keeping doing.
"I would love to work with a publisher.
"There are a few publishers that I admire, like Simon & Schuster.
"They did the Lana Del Rey audio poetry album that she recently put out.
"That was a fantastic work of art and I really loved how they rolled that out."
He said of his plans: "One of my biggest aspirations is to put together an audio visual and spoken word experience.
"I have this idea where I can give the full package experience of my spoken word poetry to people."
Oritse never imagined his fans would be so invested in his poems.
He continued: "I underestimated how ready the fans are to embrace such depth in terms of my poetry."
And he's been blown away by the support of his JLS bandmates; Marvin Humes, Aston Merrygold and JB Gill.
He said: "The boys have been incredibly supportive of my poetry, to the point where they insisted that my next poem is uploaded on the JLS social media pages. They've been amazing."
Meanwhile, the chart-topping group announced plans for a reunion tour last year, and although the pandemic forced them to postpone the run until summer 2021, Aston recently revealed they've kept in constant contact with each other.
The 32-year-old singer said in December: "We’ve got our WhatsApp group that we’re always talking on. But it has been nice to press pause on everything."
Aston promised fans it'll be worth the wait.
He said: "We have been able to sit back and enjoy life for a while. We can’t wait until the tour. It’s going to be incredible."
