New volume

by Adrian Henri, Roger McGough, Brian Patten

144p period paperback, colourful cover, excellent fresh copy with birthday inscription, very good

Genres: Poetry

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Liverpool poet and artist, Adrian Henri, is famous for his contribution to the ‘Liverpool Sound’ in the nineteen-sixties, when he led the poetry/rock group Liverpool Scene. Since then he has been a freelance poet, painter, singer, songwriter and lecturer.

Reviews

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fifteen years after The Mersey Sound Revised edition by Henri, Adrian, McGough, Roger, Patten, Brian (1999) Paperback came another joint collection of poems by Adrian Henri, Roger McGough and Brian Patten. The buzz of the original collection had dissipated; 1983 was a very different time from 1968 - but for me, the poems in this collection are generally better.

The main disappointment I felt from the older collection was the datedness and creepiness of Adrian Henri's contributions, and thankfully I felt this collection of his work was a lot more enjoyable. Although the three poets have close to equal numbers of poems, Adrian Henri's here are longer, so that his contribution takes up about half the book, and I still don't feel they are quite good enough to deserve the extra space. (There's a lot of missing punctuation and capital letters from standard English, and that's something I tend to feel is a irritating affectation.)

As before, Roger McGough's poems are most fun, some eliciting a laugh, but there is also a vein of introspection and questioning, especially in "I Don't Like the Poems", which is the first placed, and "Poem for a Dead Poet".

Brian Patten's poems start with "A Blade of Grass", which is one of the best poems about writing poetry in the English language. As before, hist poems generally are the most intellectual, but they remain accessible.

[Genetic Cuckoo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a lovely collection of poetry from 3 poets. I had not read Brian Patten's work before and it's wonderful, so a new favourite. Bit of a retro cover but a nice poetry taster.

[Annette Boehm · Rating 2 out of 5]

Doesn't compare well with the Mersey Sound volume. The latter was refreshing, funny, at times absurd and playful. This, however -- too often I found myself wondering who edited this. There are a couple of enjoyable pieces, but too many that are neither innovative nor well-crafted. The saving grace of this book is the last part, Brian Patten's section, which is the strongest here.