Poets in residence: Mersey trio get permanent home

Apr 15 2008 by Vicky Anderson, Liverpool Daily Post

THE archives of the Liverpool Poets – Roger McGough, Adrian Henri and Brian Patten – are being made available to the public after being acquired by the University of Liverpool.

Dozens of boxes of play scripts, drafts of poems, letters and photographs – so many it will take two years to catalogue – have been passed on to the university library following donations and grants totalling more than £200,000.

McGough and Catherine Marcangeli, partner of the late Adrian Henri, met yesterday in the Victoria Gallery and Museum on Brownlow Hill, which is currently being converted ahead of a public opening in July.

The massive collection of note-books, magazines, correspondence and other items spans the careers of the poets from the 1960s until the turn of the 21st century.

Cataloguing everything will be a two-year project for which the university is recruiting a dedicated archivist.

A taster of the archives will go on display later in the year once the new gallery is opened and the resource will eventually be available online.

Roger McGough said: “My archive reflects a lifetime of work and is full of fond memories of Brian, Adrian and many other friends and colleagues.

“It was, and still is, very exciting to work in Liverpool and so bringing our archives together will give a good overall picture of the city’s cultural scene. I am really pleased we can now share this collection with the public.

“I’m very proud of it. The reason I kept the books was not for posterity, but to refer to.

“Just the other day, I went to look in a notebook as I’d been asked to write some lyrics, but the cupboard was bare – they were all with the university. I was suddenly aware of that and felt a bit bereft. It is the end of something, it is a loss.

“I was talking with Brian about it, giving everything away. In the end we thought, what if the house gets burned down? At least being at the university it will be looked after – and it will be smashing.”

Catherine Marcangeli, who recently edited the Selected and Unpublished Poems of Henri, said: “Adrian had systematically had a few boxes for every year, with everything in it marked on the box – an archivist’s dream.

“As an institution, it is quite fitting that the University of Liverpool should be very keen to honour the work of their sons.”

Maureen Watry, head of special collections and archives and Liverpool University library, said it was exciting to come into such a large amount of material.

“We were particularly keen to acquire it at the university because of course, Liverpool is the city that inspired so much of their writing,” she said.

“We already had 40 boxes of Adrian Henri material, but with Roger McGough and Brian Patten it completes the collection of the Liverpool poets.”

The Victoria Museum and Gallery opens to the public in July with an exhibition of work by former Beatle Stuart Sutcliffe.

vickyanderson