Brian Patten

Brian Patten was one of the successful and influential "Liverpool Poets", who emerged in the 1960s. Today, Brian is one of the most popular poets - for young people and adults alike. He has also written plays and fiction and edited poetry anthologies.

THE BASICS
Born: Liverpool, February 7th 1946
Jobs: Reporter, Magazine Editor
Lives: London
First Book for Children: Gargling With Jelly, 1985

THE BOOKS
Brian Patten grew up in a tiny street called Wavertree Vale. "The street's name was my first lesson in irony," Brian remembers. " It was a treeless street that crouched in the shadows cast by huge gasometers." He began writing poetry at Sefton Park Secondary School. Leaving school at fifteen, Brian worked as a reporter on a local newspaper. In his spare time, he started his own poetry magazine, Underdog, which published, amongst others, the then unknown Roger McGough and Adrian Henri, along with translations of European poets Patten felt would appeal to a non-academic audience. In this way, Brian was instrumental in initiating the post-war revival of performance poetry in Britain.

With his mixture of serious and humorous work, there are few poets who can equal Patten in performance, and he has given readings throughout the world, working with such figures as Pablo Neruda, Stephen Spender, Stevie Smith, Robert Lowell and Allen Ginsberg. He has read his work in places as varied as The University of California and the Islamic Students Union in Khartoum.

To children he is known primarily for his humorous verse, in such collections as Gargling With Jelly, Thawing Frozen Frogs and The Utter Nutters.

WHAT HE SAYS...
"I was about thirteen when I began writing. It was a way of expressing feelings I felt I couldn't share with the adults who surrounded me."

"Sometimes ideas are sparked off by a rhyme, but I honestly don't know where they come from. All I know is that as soon as I get one another comes along, then another, then another. And then they go away for a while, and I think I'll never be able to write another poem ever again."

"For me, writing comes in bursts of activity with long stretches of nothing in between. When I'm not writing I forget how much I like it when I am."

"There was only one book in my house... it was about a fox but I never read it. It smelt very musty! My introduction to books came from outside my own home. There was an old lady about five doors up the road who was very eccentric. She had what seemed to me a huge library. There were lots and lots of books, all very old - they smelt of bitter coffee and mothballs - and she used to lend me books of fairy tales."

"I read lots of comics when I was little. I think my earliest memory is of sitting on the doorstep with my auntie reading a comic. It could have been the Dandy."

"I don't think it matters what sets a child off on the journey from comic books to Shakespeare. It's a fairly well travelled route that with the occasional nudge from an adult can't really be faulted. Comics, after all, are a far older and more primitive form of storytelling than books. Their origins can be traced back via the picture broadsides of the seventeenth century to the religious frescoes of the Middle Ages, back even to the oldest comics of all: the ancient cave paintings."

"Writing for children is as hard as any other writing. Kids won't let you get away with half a job. They like humorous poems but they also like serious ones. Adults forget that the intensity of a child's fear or anger matches their own."

WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT BRIAN PATTEN...
"Patten has the power to make young people look again at the familiar world around them and to see something new in it." Twentieth Century Children's Writers

"Fun in abundance." Morag Styles, Books For Keeps on Thawing Frozen Frogs

"All of human life is packed into this suburban verse, naughty enough to entertain young minds." Liverpool Echo on The Utter Nutters

"The Utter Nutters is a book for dipping into, for rummaging... let the children explore it on their own. They'll love it." TES

"Brian Patten's new book of hilarious poems is choc full of nutty neighbours." Young Telegraph on The Utter Nutters

"A joy of a book." Junior Education on The Puffin Book of Utterly Brilliant Poetry

"A family favourite to return to time and time again." Sainsbury's Magazine on The Puffin Book of Utterly Brilliant Poetry

"Fully comprehensive, it is essential reading." Wes Magee, Junior Education on The Puffin Book of Twentieth Century Children's Verse

"Fresh, faultless." The Scotsman on The Puffin Book of Twentieth Century Children's Verse