Mersey Beat

In the 1960s a group of poets, musicians, and artists in Liverpool decided that they wanted to create literature and art which spoke to the younger generation. They produced work that commented on and captured everyday moments, packed with cultural references and modern language.

This group, and movement, came to be known as Mersey Beat.

Mersey Beat definition

Mersey Beat is a postmodern literary and art movement that emerged from Liverpool in the 1960s. The term Mersey Beat refers to both the geographical and literary context of this poetry movement. 'Mersey' geographically places the movement in Liverpool, where the river Mersey runs. 'Beat' addresses the influence of the Beat poetry movement on the Mersey Beat poets.

Mersey Beat genre

Mersey Beat is part of the broader performance poetry genre. The poets who were part of this movement experimented with the form and rhythms of their work, creating pieces that both lyrically and verbally engaged their audience.

The Mersey Beat movement was also a 'total art' movement. This means that it involved music, visual art, comedy, and other mediums, alongside poetry. The combination of these different mediums created work that broke away from traditional expectations of poetry. Most commonly, many Mersey Beat poets used music to enhance their performance, forming poetry-rock groups such as The Liverpool Scene.

Alongside the combination of different artistic mediums, poetry from the Mersey Beat movement is characterised by:

• Cultural references.
• Colloquial language.
• Modern subject matter.
• Free-verse structure that breaks traditional poetic conventions.

The history of Mersey Beat

The Mersey Beat movement originated at the Streates coffee bar in Liverpool. In 1960, poet Adrian Henri began attending poetry and jazz evenings there, featuring performers including Pete Brown, Roger McGough, and Brian Patten.

While attending these performance nights, Adrian Henri befriended McGough and Pattern. These three poets soon became the centre of Liverpool's growing and vibrant poetry scene. Although each of these poets had different styles and discussed varying themes in their works, they all wrote poems intended to be performed to an audience.

The work of the Mersey Beat poets was not limited to poetry, it expanded to mixed-media music groups. For instance, in 1962 Scaffold was formed by McGough, Mike McGear, and John Gorman. 'Scaffold' was a mixed-media performance group, that produced songs including Lily the Pink (1968), alongside poetry. Five years after 'Scaffold' was formed, Henri founded his own poetry-rock group known as The Liverpool Scene.

Alongside forming various mixed-media groups, the artists involved in the Mersey Beat movement worked to create performance spaces and opportunities. For example, during the mid to late-1960s two Big Poetry Nights took place at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.

In 1967 The Mersey Sound poetry collection was published, capturing the poetry of the Mersey Beat movement. This collection was a great success, with 20,000 copies selling in the first month, and the first volume going on to sell over 500,000 copies.

The Mersey Beat poets

The Mersey Sound (1967) poetry anthology contained the works of Adrian Henri, Rodger McGough, and Brian Patten. This collection introduced the poetry of the Mersey Beat movement to a broader audience.

Let's take a look at the three poets whose works contributed to this collection!

Adrian Henri

Adrian Henri was a British painter and poet. After training as a painter at King's College, Newcastle, Henri went on to lecture at Liverpool College of Art. Alongside working as an artist, between 1967 and 1970 Henri was part of the band The Liverpool Scene, which released four poetry-rock LPs. Although the band and their albums were relatively unsuccessful, The Liverpool Scene opened for Led Zeppelin on their 1969 tour.

Henri became known for his poetry when he entered the Liverpool poetry scene in the 1960s. As a poet, Henri had a lyrical style of writing. His work was often autobiographical, focusing on themes such as love and everyday life. In his obituary, Mike Evans, Henri's band-mate, stated that Adrian's poems;

During his life-time, Henri published his work in multiple poetry collections including; The Mersey Sound (1986), Collected Poems, 1967-85 (1986), and Not Fade Away (1994).

'Adrian Henri's Last Will And Testament' (1964)

In his poem 'Adrian Henri's Last Will And Testament', Henri mixes the form of a will with the form of a poem. The poem is written in free-verse with no set rhyme scheme or metre, highlighting the innovative style associated with the Mersey Beat poets.

Henri sites two Russian revolutionaries as the 'executors' of his will, Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876) and Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921). He then lists six varying items including his 'priceless collection of Victorian Oil Lamps', 'Proceeds from the sale of relics: locks of hair', and 'the entire East Lancs Road'.

Henri's cultural references, alongside his listing of various items, create a witty and sharp style. This witty style contrasts with the form of the poem, a will, as the reader ultimately associates this with death.

The subject matter of goods and their distribution also indicates a socialist political stance. For instance, Henri leaves his paintings;

Roger McGough

Roger McGough is an English performance poet and playwright. Currently, he presents the radio show Poetry Please on BBC Radio Four. During the early 1960s, McGough lived in Merseyside where he worked as a French teacher and formed the poetry and music trio The Scaffold.

McGough's work was marked by his witty tone and subject matter of challenging everyday situations, such as unfulfilled relationships and lost youth. In 1983 and 1997, McGough received the Signal Poetry Award for his children's poetry. Poetry collections published by McGough include The Way Things Are (1999) and That Awkward Age (2009).

'The Way Things Are' (1999)

In his poem 'The Way Things Are' McGough presents the world in an honest manner, commenting on how many people are expected to accept 'the way things are'.

The speaker initially answers fantastical questions that a child might ask, for instance;

Before making more ambiguous and quasi-philosophical statements in the poem's final two stanzas, including;

These answers and statements highlight the innocent curiosity of youth, alongside the confusing nature of the world around us. Through this, McGough encapsulates the way in which we cannot always fully explain the world, instead, we just accept it as it is.

The idea of accepting the world as it is is underpinned by the repetition of the phrase 'I am your father and that is the way things are' at the end of the first six stanzas. This use of repetition creates a monotonous tone, as though no matter what, the reader is expected to accept the way things are. This monotonous tone is emphasised by the use of rhyme in the final two lines of the first six stanzas, creating a repetitive rhythm.

However, the final two lines of the poem contrast with this pattern;

Here, McGough breaks the rhyme by dividing this phrase into two separate lines. The fragmented rhythm created by this change is emphasised by McGough's use of enjambment, which creates an unexpected pause midway through the sentence. This fragmented rhythm highlights the change in the final line. Rather than saying 'and this is the way things are', the speaker apologises and uses the conjunction 'but'. These final two lines add an element of sadness to the fact that we just have to accept the way the world is.

Brian Patten

Brian Patten is an English author and poet who gained recognition in the 1960s as part of the Mersey Beat movement. Patten was raised in Liverpool, attending Sefton Park School, before leaving there at fifteen to work as a music journalist.

Patten is best known for his modern romantic poetry, which has a lyrical style, directly discussing intimate experiences. Poetry collections published by Patten include; Notes on the Hurrying Man (1969) and Armarda (1996).

Mersey Beat love poem

At the time the Mersey Beat movement was forming in Liverpool, the hippie subculture was taking hold of the United States of America. This cultural movement was marked by the 1967 Summer of Love which involved an estimated 100,000 people gathering together in San Francisco. In parallel to the Summer of Love, were the Swinging Sixities in the United Kingdom, a youth-led cultural revolution focusing on modernity, art, and sexual liberation.

The Mersey Beat movement is characterised by its modern subject matter and cultural references. The poets involved in this movement wanted to create work that would break away from traditional subject matter and poetic forms, work intended to speak to a younger generation. Therefore, the Swinging Sixties and Summer of Love had a cultural influence on the subject matter which poets such as Patten focused on.

The majority of the Mersey Beat poets wrote love poetry, including Adrian Henri with his poem 'Love is...' (1967). However, Patten is the Mersey Beat poet best known for writing on such subject matter, with his poetry collections Love Poems (1981) and Collected Love Poems (2007).

'First Love' (2007) by Brian Patten

In his poem 'First Love', Patten describes a young boy's first encounter with love. The poem is written in free-verse, with no punctuation or end-stopped lines. This creates an unending flow, encompassing how the boy in the poem 'was ignorant it could ever end'. To the boy, his first love 'was endless', just as the poem is.

Patten utilises simplistic language throughout the poem, portraying this experience of first love in an open and honest way. The use of the past tense implies that this love is no longer there, creating a bitter and nostalgic tone.

The effective simplicity of Patten's writing is exemplified by his use of repetition, for instance;

Here, the repetition of 'each' creates a continuous rhythm, highlighting how the boy is completing the same actions 'each night' and 'day'. This is contrasted by how 'each day was unfamiliar', demonstrating how the feeling of first love is 'scary' and 'new'.

The honest way Patten represents love in this poem contrasts with traditional love poetry that romanticises love. Patten presents both the good and bad sides of love, writing something that people can relate to, rather than portraying love as an idealistic and purely positive emotion.

This poem, and Patten's style, are good examples of how the Mersey Beat poets sought to write poetry that addressed and spoke to the younger generation.