Brian Patten

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Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox writer Brian Patten (7 February 1946 – 29 September 2025) was an English poet and author.<ref name="LiverpoolEcho2013">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He came to prominence in the 1960s as one of the Liverpool poets, and wrote primarily lyrical poetry about human relationships. His famous works included "Little Johnny's Confession", "The Irrelevant Song", "Vanishing Trick", "Emma's Doll", and "Impossible Parents".

Life

Patten was born in Bootle, Lancashire, on 7 February 1946, to Arthur and Stella Patten.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="guardianobit">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> His parents separated shortly after, and he went to live with his grandparents in Wavertree, south Liverpool. He was schooled at Sefton Park Secondary Modern in the Smithdown Road area, where his early poetic writing was encouraged.<ref name="LiverpoolEcho2013" /> He left school at 15 and began work for The Bootle Times writing a column on popular music. At the age of 18, he moved to Paris, France, where he lived rough for a time, earning money by writing poems in chalk on the pavements.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Together with another 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".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Together with Henri and McGough, Patten was awarded the Freedom of the City of Liverpool in 2001.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He received the Cholmondeley Award for poetry in 2002,<ref name="echo-obit">Template:Cite news</ref> and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2003.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

From 1970 to 1975, Patten was in a relationship with Mary Moore, the daughter of artist Henry Moore; his collection The Irrelevant Song is dedicated to her.<ref name="guardianobit" /> From 1994 he was in a relationship with travel writer Linda Cookson. The pair married in 2015 and lived in Dittisham, Devon.<ref name="guardianobit" />

Brian was a Patron of the Charles Causley Trust for many years, alongside his fellow Mersey poet Roger McGough. He worked closely with Charles Causley and was an admirer of his style and breadth of work. Patten contributed to a new anthology, The Drifted Stream, in 2024 which explored the impact and legacy of Causley on other's work and lives. Nicola Nuttall, Director of the Causley Trust, said "Brian's openness and generosity helped the Trust maximise the power of poetry to improve and change lives. His contribution to The Drifted Stream was poignant and willingly shared. He will be greatly missed by the Trust and readers of all ages”

Patten died in Torbay, Devon, on 29 September 2025, at the age of 79.<ref name="echo-obit"/>

Work

Patten's first published solo volumes of poems were Little Johnny's Confession (1967), Notes to the Hurrying Man (1969) and The Irrelevant Song (1971). In 1972 he was featured alongside Libby Houston, Gillian Barron, Spike Hawkins, Heather Holden, Alan Jackson and Ted Milton in The Old Pals' Act, edited by Pete Brown.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Patten's next published works were Vanishing Trick (1976) and Grave Gossip (1979). In 1983, along with McGough and Henri, he published New Volume, a follow-up to The Mersey Sound. 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."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

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."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

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."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Selected bibliography

Publications with others

Poetry collections for adults

  • Little Johnny's Confession, 1967, Template:ISBN
  • 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, Template:ISBN
  • Grave Gossip, 1979
  • Love Poems (anthology), 1986, Template:ISBN
  • Storm Damage, 1988, Template:ISBN
  • Grinning Jack (anthology), 1992
  • Armada, 1996, Template:ISBN
  • Selected Poems (anthology), 2007, Template:ISBN
  • Collected Love Poems (anthology), 2007, Template:ISBN
  • The Book of Upside Down Thinking, 2018, Template:ISBN

Books for children

As editor

  • The Puffin Book of Utterly Brilliant Poetry, 1998, Template:ISBN
  • The Puffin Book of Modern Children's Verse, 2006

References

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