Adrian Henri and the Merseybeat Movement: Performance, Poetry, and Public in the Liverpool Scene of the 1960S
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Adrian Henri and the Merseybeat movement: performance, poetry, and public in the Liverpool scene of the 1960s Helen Louise Taylor Royal Holloway, University of London A thesis presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 2013 1 For, and because of, my parents. 2 DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP I, Helen Louise Taylor, hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Signed: . Date: . 3 THESIS ABSTRACT Adrian Henri and the Merseybeat movement: performance, poetry, and public in the Liverpool scene of the 1960s The thesis focuses on the Merseybeat movement and its manifestations in Liverpool in the 1960s, with particular emphasis on the work of Adrian Henri. The Merseybeat movement – centred upon Adrian Henri, Roger McGough, and Brian Patten – was a site-specific confluence of the alternative avant-garde and the British populist tradition of art, and deserves exploration as both a literary and a cultural phenomenon. The thesis argues that the dismissal of Merseybeat as ‘pop poetry’ has come from using the wrong critical tools: it is better viewed as a ‘total art’ movement, encompassing not only poetry but also visual art, music, comedy, happenings, and other forms of artistic expression. The thesis is primarily concerned with the performative and collaborative aspects of Merseybeat. As well as considering this particular movement in terms of oral performance and audience communication, this research also contributes to our understanding of the dissemination of this poetry – particularly how its audiences experienced live poetry alongside other artforms and media. I have used the term ‘crossmedia’ to refer to the way in which a piece can blend media and to explore how a piece can be performed in different ways to suit different occasions, appropriating elements from various artforms to create a unique performance instance. The thesis has been divided into five chapters in order to consider, first, the movement’s origins (in the city of Liverpool) and suggested antecedents (in the American Beat scene), and second, its three most important facets: live readings, performances with music, and visual art practices. The work draws on literary geography, performance studies, and visual art theories, and I have also undertaken much new archival research and interviews with both performers and audience members in order to present a ‘thick description’ of not only the events but also the context in which they arose. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements 6 List of Abbreviations 7 Introduction: performance, poetry, and public 8 The origins of Merseybeat / The critical reception / The thesis Chapter One: Liverpool 21 The River and the City / The Port Itself / The Cunard Yanks / Liverpool 8 / Diasporic Liverpudlians / Walking the City / Conclusion Chapter Two: Ginsberg and Liverpool 60 Liverpool as the Centre of Human Consciousness / Ginsberg and Mrs. Albion / Ginsberg’s Poetic Influence / Conclusion Chapter Three: Verbal Expression and the Live Event 96 Audience and Atmosphere / Audience and the Unique Event / Location and Locality / Authorial Presence and Control / Collaboration in Performance / Verbal Play / Conclusion Chapter Four: Music in Merseybeat 135 Music in Merseybeat / Music for McGough, the Scaffold, Grimms, and Patten / Music for Henri / Adrian Henri’s Talking Blues / Setting Bat-Poems to Music / Music and Evocation / The Entry of Christ Into Liverpool (Part One of Two) / Conclusion Chapter Five: Visual Art Practice 174 I Want To Paint / The Entry of Christ Into Liverpool (Part Two of Two) / Visual Quotations of the Everyday / Visual Poetry / Visual Art Practice in Performance / Events and Happenings / Conclusion Conclusion 216 Appendix 222 Bibliography 265 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I should like to thank all who agreed to be interviewed for this thesis: Roger McGough, Brian Patten, Mike McCartney, Mike Evans, Heather Holden, and Geoff Ward. Special thanks are due to Catherine Marcangeli for her support, advice, and enthusiasm for the project. I am also grateful to Andy Roberts, for the time he gave discussing the music of the Merseybeat movement and his experiences in Liverpool. There are two groups of people in Liverpool who deserve particular thanks: Dr. Maureen Watry and her staff at the Liverpool University Special Collections and Archives (especially the original cataloguer, Jo Klett) for all of their help over the years; and all those who spoke to me of their memories, especially Arthur Alden for organising interviewees. Many of the ideas in this thesis have been presented at conferences over the last three years, and I am grateful to the conference organisers for those chances to speak and the feedback which was given at each event. Elements of Chapter Four have appeared in print as ‘“Reelin’ an’ a-rockin’”: Adrian Henri and 1960s Pop’, in the East-West Cultural Passage journal (12.1, 2012). *** I should like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Robert Hampson, whose guidance has been invaluable throughout. Without his initial interest and continued support this project would not have been possible. Thanks, too, to Dr. Will Montgomery and Professor Chris Townsend for their input. And finally, thanks are due to my wonderful family and friends for their aid and encouragement. 6 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS TLS Edward Lucie-Smith, ed., The Liverpool Scene (London: Rapp & Carroll, 1967) TMS1 Adrian Henri, Roger McGough, and Brian Patten, Penguin Modern Poets 10: The Mersey Sound (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967) TMS2 Adrian Henri, Roger McGough, and Brian Patten, Penguin Modern Poets 10: The Mersey Sound Revised and Enlarged Edition (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974) TMS3 Adrian Henri, Roger McGough, and Brian Patten, The Mersey Sound Revised Edition (Harmondsworth: Penguin,1983) TMS4 Adrian Henri, Roger McGough, and Brian Patten, The Mersey Sound Revised Edition, Penguin Modern Classics edition (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2007) A Adrian Henri, Autobiography (London: Jonathan Cape, 1971) C Adrian Henri, City (London: Rapp and Whiting, 1969) NFA Adrian Henri, Not Fade Away: Poems 1989-1994 (Newcastle: Bloodaxe, 1994) PA Adrian Henri, Penny Arcade (London: Jonathan Cape, 1983) Selected Adrian Henri, Selected and Unpublished Poems 1965-2000, ed. by Catherine Marcangeli (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2007) TAN Adrian Henri, Tonight at Noon (London: Rapp & Whiting, 1968) MCP Roger McGough, Collected Poems (London: Penguin, 2004) PSP Brian Patten, Selected Poems (London: Penguin, 2007) 7 Adrian Henri’s notebook list of ‘things that have influenced me’ From Adrian Henri Archive, University of Liverpool Special Archives and Collections, Henri C 1/8. INTRODUCTION: PERFORMANCE, POETRY, AND PUBLIC Adrian Henri: ‘painter-poet’;1 ‘poet/writer/singer/painter’;2 ‘poet, painter & performer’;3 ‘notebook poet’;4 ‘poet, writer, painter, event-maker, arts organizer and catalyst’.5 These various labels attached to Henri, which come from a number of different sources, show the diversity of his practice. Henri’s notebook page, reproduced on the facing page, headed ‘things which have influenced me’ (Henri C 1/8), shows the same diversity in the inspirations for his practice. Henri described himself in the 1960s as a ‘painter/poet’ (TAN, 77), and also as someone ‘concerned with communication’, ‘trying to remove the barriers between performer and audience wherever possible’.6 He was, along with Roger McGough and Brian Patten, ‘three thirds of a little red book back in 1967’.7 The book was Penguin Modern Poets 10: The Mersey Sound, which disseminated the work of these poets to a national audience. But before 1967, from the very beginning of the decade, these poets were active in Liverpool. This thesis seeks to demonstrate the ways in which Henri and the Merseybeat poets did indeed remove traditional barriers – fostering direct connections with the audience, utilising various media, and placing importance on the live event as a mode of dissemination. It also explores the context from which that 1967 collection emerged. This movement is named here as Merseybeat to highlight the two most important sources and inspirations for these poets in this decade: the city of Liverpool, represented by ‘Mersey’, and the American ‘Beat’ poetry scene. I am using the term ‘Merseybeat’ in the full knowledge of the ‘Mersey Beat’ or ‘Mersey Sound’ music scene, in part because it demonstrates the links between these different artforms – they not only share a name but also a place and a time – but also because I believe it is the most accurate signifier for this movement. There have been and will be other ‘Liverpool Poets’, but the naming of volume ten of the Penguin Modern Poets series as The Mersey Sound was significant. None of the other books in this series had a generic title. Memos preserved in the Penguin Archive show the thought process: ‘we really do want to give this individual title a lift and a chance of 1 George Melly, Revolt into Style: The Pop Arts in the 50s and 60s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 131-2. 2 Mike Davies, ed., Conversations (Birmingham: Flat Earth Press, 1975), p. 1. 3 Words on the Run publicity material, McGough/7/18. References to the Liverpool University Special Collections and Archives (for Henri I and II, McGough, and Patten) appear in this format throughout. For finding aids and short catalogue descriptions, see http://sca.lib.liv.ac.uk/collections/colldescs/henri.html [accessed 20 May 2013]. 4 Interview with Catherine Marcangeli, May 2012. 5 Archive clipping, Henri K/6, review of Environments and Happenings from British Book News, October 1974. 6 Adrian Henri, in The Art of Adrian Henri, 1955-1985, ed. by Josie Henderson (London: Expression Printers, 1986), p. 45. Article originally published in Sphinx, autumn 1964. 7 The Wellingborough Bootleg Audio Cassette, Patten/9/1/14. 8 selling better than other volumes in the series’.8 The commercial possibilities are also recognised in the original cover brief. The ‘analysis’ section takes a particular marketing angle, referring to the ‘three “Pop” poets from Liverpool’, with the ‘treatment’ requiring: ‘something very different from present PMP style.