Roger McGough leads tributes to writer Brian Patten: ‘May he rest in poetry’

Poet Roger McGough has led tributes to the writer Brian Patten following his death at the age of 79.

Patten, who co-wrote The Mersey Sound anthology alongside McGough and Adrian Henri, “died peacefully in hospital on Monday September 29 with his wife, Linda, by his side”, a statement from his publisher HarperCollins said.

On Tuesday, McGough said in a post to X: “Laid low with the news of Brian Patten’s death. My soul-mate. R.I.P. May he Rest In Poetry.”

Born in Liverpool in 1946, Patten came to prominence with 1967’s The Mersey Sound, an anthology he wrote as part of trio “the Liverpool poets” and thought to be one of the best-selling poetry anthologies of all time.

Poets McGough and Patten received honorary doctorates from the University of Liverpool in 2006 for their contributions to arts and culture.

Patten’s long-time editor at HarperCollins, Jane Johnson, said: “I first worked with Brian Patten at George Allen And Unwin Publishers in 1985, on his gorgeous collection Love Poems.

“As a junior editor I was very much in awe of him, but he soon put a stop to that, plying me with jokes and wine and poetry both scabrous and sublime at the Chelsea Arts Club ’til I was dizzy.

“Brian was a force of nature, so full of light and life that he was impossible to contain.

“He could be a challenging writer to publish, a quicksilver spirit that slipped through your hands, impossible to pin down, one day elated with a new piece, the next hating everything about it.

“On and off through the decades, I did all I could to shepherd his words into published form.

“Throughout the last two decades he would send me excerpts from the memoir he was writing, tantalising fragments of an extraordinary life lived to the max in heart, body and soul.

“He signed off a recent email to me with: ‘What news? It’s dragonfly time here. The lake down the lane is alight with them’. Brian Patten leaves the world alight with his words.”

Patten grew up in a working-class neighbourhood and left school at 15, becoming a junior reporter on the Bootle Times.

His first solo collection was Little Johnny’s Confessions, published in 1967 when he was 21, with other collections including Vanishing Trick and Armada.

He was known for his musings on love, many of which featured in his poetry book Collected Love Poems.

He was honoured with the Freedom of the City of Liverpool in 2001, alongside Henri and McGough, and was the presenter of BBC Radio 4 series Lost Voices.