4. Roger McGough (9th November 1937)
Roger McGough is the second of the three authors featured in The Mersey Sound. Described by Carol Ann Duffy as "the patron saint of poetry", he is arguably the most famous of the Liverpool poets. His unpretentious yet subtle poems characteristically address everyday concerns through supple rhyme and dextrous wordplay.
4.1. Biographical notes and main works4
Born on the outskirts of Liverpool in 1937, Roger McGough studied Geography and French at the University of Hull before returning to his home city of Liverpool where, in the early sixties, he became a part of the city's vibrant Mersey Beat scene. According to his own autobiography Said and Done, published in 2005, his ancestry is Irish and he was …show more content…
He also worked on the script of The Beatles animation film Yellow Submarine and is well known as the affable host of BBC Radio 4's Poetry Please. He was awarded an OBE for services to poetry in 1997, a CBE in 2004 and has been honoured with the Freedom of the City of Liverpool.
4.2. “Let Me Die a Youngman’s Death”
“Let Me Die a Youngman’s Death” is the poem by Roger McGough that I chose to analyse. It is composed of five stanzas with an irregular number of lines (between four and six). The poem is written in free verse without a rhyme scheme. That is to say, it follows the rhythm of a natural speech. Furthermore, we cannot find any punctuation mark in the twenty-nine lines.
One of McGough's early poems, “Let Me Die a Youngman's Death” (but not, as the poem states, before the poet reaches 73, 91 or 104 years of age), was included in a BBC anthology of the British nation's hundred favourite poems. (Bowen, 2008: 67)
Let me die a youngman’s death not a clean & …show more content…
He describes three instances of death which he considers exciting and wants his demise to have an element of shock and surprise in it.
In the last stanza, the speaker repeats the conditions in which he does not want to die. He wants to die like a young man while having his share of adventures and action. He loathes the idea of “free from sin tiptoe in candle wax and waning death” (lines 26 and 27). He does not want a life devoid of sins and he does not want his death to be a quiet one.
5. Brian Patten (7th February 1946)
Brian Patten is the third of the authors featured in The Mersey Sound. For the biographical notes, I will mainly rely on the book published by Medina. In addition, the information about the main works is obtained from the introductory pages presented in the anthology published by Penguin Modern Classics.
5.1. Biographical notes and main works
Brian Patten was born in Liverpool in 1946. When he was only fifteen, Patten started to write in the journal Underdog. It was the first journal publishing underground poets. For that reason, Underdog had a great influence in later publications of that kind of literature. (Medina, 2007:
Roger McGough is the second of the three authors featured in The Mersey Sound. Described by Carol Ann Duffy as "the patron saint of poetry", he is arguably the most famous of the Liverpool poets. His unpretentious yet subtle poems characteristically address everyday concerns through supple rhyme and dextrous wordplay.
4.1. Biographical notes and main works4
Born on the outskirts of Liverpool in 1937, Roger McGough studied Geography and French at the University of Hull before returning to his home city of Liverpool where, in the early sixties, he became a part of the city's vibrant Mersey Beat scene. According to his own autobiography Said and Done, published in 2005, his ancestry is Irish and he was …show more content…
He also worked on the script of The Beatles animation film Yellow Submarine and is well known as the affable host of BBC Radio 4's Poetry Please. He was awarded an OBE for services to poetry in 1997, a CBE in 2004 and has been honoured with the Freedom of the City of Liverpool.
4.2. “Let Me Die a Youngman’s Death”
“Let Me Die a Youngman’s Death” is the poem by Roger McGough that I chose to analyse. It is composed of five stanzas with an irregular number of lines (between four and six). The poem is written in free verse without a rhyme scheme. That is to say, it follows the rhythm of a natural speech. Furthermore, we cannot find any punctuation mark in the twenty-nine lines.
One of McGough's early poems, “Let Me Die a Youngman's Death” (but not, as the poem states, before the poet reaches 73, 91 or 104 years of age), was included in a BBC anthology of the British nation's hundred favourite poems. (Bowen, 2008: 67)
Let me die a youngman’s death not a clean & …show more content…
He describes three instances of death which he considers exciting and wants his demise to have an element of shock and surprise in it.
In the last stanza, the speaker repeats the conditions in which he does not want to die. He wants to die like a young man while having his share of adventures and action. He loathes the idea of “free from sin tiptoe in candle wax and waning death” (lines 26 and 27). He does not want a life devoid of sins and he does not want his death to be a quiet one.
5. Brian Patten (7th February 1946)
Brian Patten is the third of the authors featured in The Mersey Sound. For the biographical notes, I will mainly rely on the book published by Medina. In addition, the information about the main works is obtained from the introductory pages presented in the anthology published by Penguin Modern Classics.
5.1. Biographical notes and main works
Brian Patten was born in Liverpool in 1946. When he was only fifteen, Patten started to write in the journal Underdog. It was the first journal publishing underground poets. For that reason, Underdog had a great influence in later publications of that kind of literature. (Medina, 2007: