He could have chosen verses by Milton, Shelley or even Robert Burns. Instead, Gordon Brown has named as his favourite poem a chunk of sociology by an obscure American lecturer.

The author, although flattered by Brown’s choice, said he was surprised because he had not written the words as poetry at all, but rather as part of a PhD thesis about the individual’s limited powers of self-sufficiency.

The prime minister made his choice when asked to submit his best-loved piece of verse for a book called World Leaders’ Favourite Poems.

Parthian, the publisher, wrote to scores of politicians around the world. While Tony Blair chose a patriotic poem by Rupert Brooke, the firm was puzzled when Brown opted for James Stockinger, 60, a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

The “poem” Brown sent in begins: “It is the hands of others who grow the food we eat, / Who sew the clothes we wear, / Who build the houses we inhabit.” The publishers recognised it as thoughtful and inspirational, even if it did not quite rhyme or scan. “We had never heard of him. We then found out that he was not a poet at all,” said Dominic Williams, marketing director of Parthian, which will publish the selection of verse from 28 world leaders next month.

Stockinger said this weekend he was flattered the prime minister had picked his work, but added that Brown had changed the words to suit his audience. Differing versions have been used by Brown in a dozen speeches over 15 years.

“The original quotation was a part of my doctoral dissertation and, although it has lyrical qualities, is not actually a poem,” Stockinger said. “It was intended as a critique of John Locke’s ideas about the self-sufficient individual in the state of nature.”

For the book, Stockinger has generously provided the publisher with his original words, set out in verse form.

Blair’s choice of poem is more predictable – Rupert Brooke’s The Soldier, which starts: “If I should die, think only this of me: / That there’s some corner of a foreign field / That is for ever England.” It is unclear if he had Iraq or Afghanistan in mind.

Earlier this month Brown was the subject of a satirical poem, allegedly penned by a disloyal minister. It read: “At Downing Street upon the stair / I met a man who wasn’t Blair. / He wasn’t Blair again today; / Oh how I wish he’d go away.”

The Hands of Others
by James Stockinger

“It is the hands of others who grow the food we eat,
Who sew the clothes we wear,
Who build the houses we inhabit.
It is the hands of others who tend us when we’re sick
And raise us up when we fall;
It is the hands of others who lift us from the cradle
And lower us finally into the grave.”

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