Another very sad loss: Brian Patten, a poet whose work was always, for me, filled with a kind of yearning light. #RIPBrianPatten
51
242
1K
Replies
@IMcMillan I didn’t know. This is the first I’ve heard. He was one of the three great Liverpool poets that I first saw at O’Connors in the 60s. Only Roger left now, so sad Ian.
0
0
2
@IMcMillan @JulianDutton1 Brian made it ok for working class boys like me to rhyme words when we wrote and perhaps even dare to call it poetry.
0
0
0
@IMcMillan So much heartfelt poetry on Twitter these days as though hearts everywhere are drawing from powerful human depths to balance heartlessness of Govts blackmailed or bribed into shameful complicity with the darkness of Zionist Genocide in Palestine. A great global heart yet beats.
0
0
2
@IMcMillan I remember seeing him at the Warwick University Arts Centre around 1990-ish. The signed copy of “Thawing Frozen Frogs” is on my daughter’s bookshelf these days. My favourite of his was “A Small Dragon,” which really fits your description of “yearning light”. A sad loss indeed.
0
4
25
@IMcMillan & the giant tony harrison gone too..what a week. JCClark keeps going tho..& all who were encouraged by Merseybeat Fab 3. .so long ago.
0
0
0
@IMcMillan @Tom___Scott I remember him from many, many years ago when poetry became a popular thing amongst the younger folks. Fond memories of all the Liverpool poet lads too. It is a sad day indeed.
0
0
2
@IMcMillan So lucky to have been a teenager from Bebington (a Ferry ride away from Liverpool) in 1970's. We loved our gang of three but Patten talked of love and loss and longing........and we were smitten. Such gorgeous curly hair.
0
0
3
@IMcMillan Oh no, he was my favourite of the Mersey Poets that came to Southport regularly when I was a teenager. I took my youngest daughter to see him in Durham. I took this book for him to sign. He felt the pics detracted from the poems but I thought they drew me in…
1
1
17
@IMcMillan I remember taking a young Iraqi refugee to see him perform Gargling with Jelly at @HullTruck in 2004. Patten made that boy laugh so much; it was a chink of light in what had been a tough life. His poetry was a gift.
0
1
8
@IMcMillan One of my very favourites. I was fortunate to see him, Adrian and Roger at the Edinburgh Festival many years ago. They also had Willy Russell with them doing a few songs and some political stuff. An amazing evening.
0
0
1
@IMcMillan Oh no, that’s a real shock. I fell in love with poetry after reading the Mersey sound. I saw him twice at poetry readings. A sad day, a wonderful poet 😔
0
0
2
@IMcMillan Thawing Frozen Frogs was a favourite for us. A very sad loss. His words live on long in the memory.
0
0
1
@IMcMillan And I treasured every second of his readings and his lilting voice - my favourite poet all my life - brought me to poetry as a teenager
0
0
1
@IMcMillan Dug out my old copy and relived a bit of my youth, I can still hear his gentle tones.
0
4
13
@IMcMillan This is sad news. I first heard him reading his poetry when he was part of the Mersey poets back in the 1960s.
0
0
1