Brian Patten

Brian Patten (born 7 February 1946) is an English poet and author. He came to prominence in the 1960s as one of the Liverpool poets, and writes primarily lyrical poetry about human relationships. His famous works include "Little Johnny's Confessions", "The Irrelevant Song", "Vanishing Trick", "Emma's Doll", and "Impossible Parents".

Career

Patten was born in Bootle, Liverpool, England. He attended Sefton Park School in the Smithdown Road area of Liverpool, where his early poetic writing was encouraged. He left school at fifteen and began work for ''The Bootle Times'' writing a column on popular music. At age 18, he moved to Paris, where he lived rough for a time, earning money by writing poems in chalk on the pavements.

Together with the other two Liverpool poets, Roger McGough and Adrian Henri, Patten published '' The Mersey Sound'' in 1967. One of the best-selling poetry anthologies of modern times, ''The Mersey Sound'' aimed to make poetry accessible to a broader audience. It has been described as "the most significant anthology of the twentieth century". Together with Henri and McGough, Patten was awarded the Freedom of the City of Liverpool in 2001.

Patten's first published volumes of poems were ''Little Johnny's Confession'' (1967) and ''Notes to the Hurrying Man'' (1969). They were followed by ''The Irrelevant Song'' (1971), ''Vanishing Trick'' (1976) and '' Grave Gossip'' (1979). In 1983, along with Roger McGough and Adrian Henri, Patten published the follow-up to '' The Mersey Sound'' with ''New Volume''. Patten's later solo collections, ''Storm Damage'' (1988) and ''Armada'' (1996), are more varied, the latter featuring a sequence of poems concerning the death of his mother and memories of his childhood. ''Armada'' is perhaps Patten's most mature and formal book, dispensing with much of the playfulness of former work. He has also written comic verse for children, notably ''Gargling With Jelly'' and ''Thawing Frozen Frogs''.

Patten's style is generally lyrical and his subjects are primarily love and relationships. His 1986 collection ''Love Poems'' draws together his best work in this area from the previous sixteen years. Charles Causley commented that he "reveals a sensibility profoundly aware of the ever-present possibility of the magical and the miraculous, as well as of the granite-hard realities. These are undiluted poems, beautifully calculated, informed - even in their darkest moments - with courage and hope."

The actor Paul Bettany, in his contribution to the poetry collection ''Poems That Make Grown Men Cry'' (2014), said of Patten's work: "Reading Brian Patten's poetry does that trick that art should do, which is to sort of adhere you to the surface of the planet, just long enough that you don't go spinning off into the loneliness of space - 'Somebody else has felt this too', you think. And you breathe a little easier".

Patten's poem "So Many Different Lengths of Time" has, in recent times, become a popular poem recited at funerals. At the service to remember Ken Dodd in Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral, the actor Stephanie Cole read "So Many Different Lengths of Time" to a congregation of thousands within and outside the building. Opening his poem with verse by Pablo Neruda, Patten's poem argues that it is the act of remembrance which offers family members the best antidote to the anguish of loss. In tackling the subject of grief, Patten views poetry as performing an important social function: "Poetry helps us understand what we’ve forgotten to remember. It reminds us of things that are important to us when the world overtakes us emotionally."

Selected bibliography

Publications with others

* ''The Mersey Sound'' 1967
* ''New Volume'' 1983

Poetry collections for adults

* ''Little Johnny's Confession'' 1967
* ''Notes to the Hurrying Man'' 1969
* ''When You Wake Tomorrow'' illustrated by Pip Benveniste 1971
* ''The Irrelevant Song'' 1971
* ''And Sometimes It Happens'' 1972
* ''Vanishing Trick'' 1976
* ''Grave Gossip'' 1979
* ''Love Poems'' - (anthology) 1986
* ''Storm Damage'' 1988
* ''Grinning Jack'' (anthology) 1992
* ''Armada'' 1996
* ''Selected Poems'' (anthology) 2007
* ''Collected Love Poems'' (anthology) 2007
* ''The Book of Upside Down Thinking'' 2018

Books for children

* ''The Elephant and the Flower'' 1970
* ''Jumping Mouse'' 1972
* ''Emma's Doll'' 1976
* ''Mr Moon's Last Case'' 1988
* ''Thawing Frozen Frogs'' 1992
* ''Impossible Parents'', illustrated by Arthur Robins Walker Books, 1994,
* ''Jimmy Tag-Along'' 1995
* ''The Blue and Green Ark: An Alphabet For Planet Earth'' 1999
* ''Juggling With Gerbils'' 2000
* ''The Impossible Parents Go Green'', illus. Robins, Walker Books, 2001
* ''The Story Giant'' 2004
* ''The Most Impossible Parents'', illus. Robins, Walker Books, 2010
* ''Gargling With Jelly'' 2015

As editor

* ''The Puffin Book of Utterly Brilliant Poetry'' 1998
* ''The Puffin Book of Modern Children's Verse'' 2006

References

External links

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An interview from Liverpool's ''Nerve'' magazine

Interview with Roger McGough about 40 years of the Mersey Poets

Articles by Brian Patten on the 5th Estate blog

Portraits of Brian Patten at National Portrait Gallery

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Patten, Brian
Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
1950 births
Living people
20th-century English poets
21st-century English poets
English male poets
20th-century English male writers
Grimms members
Audiobook narrators