McGough was born in Litherland, Lancashire, to the north of Liverpool, the city with which he is firmly associated, and was educated at the University of Hull at a time when Philip Larkin was the librarian there. Returning to Merseyside in the early 1960s, he worked as a teacher and, with John Gorman, organised arts events. After meeting Mike McGear the trio formed The Scaffold, working the Edinburgh Festival until they signed to Parlophone records in 1966. The group scored several hit records, reaching number one in the UK Singles Chart in 1968 with their version of “Lily The Pink”. McGough wrote the lyrics for many of the group’s songs and also recorded the musical comedy/poetry album McGough and McGear.
McGough was also responsible for much of the humorous dialogue in The Beatles’ animated film, Yellow Submarine, although he did not receive an on-screen credit. At about the same time a selection of his poems was published, along with work from Adrian Henri and Brian Patten, in a best-selling paperback volume of verse entitled The Mersey Sound, first published in 1967, revised in 1983 and again in 2007.
McGough won a Cholmondeley Award in 1998, and was awarded the CBE in June 2004. He holds an honorary MA from Nene College of Further Education;[citation needed] was awarded an honorary degree from Roehampton University in 2006; as well as an honorary doctorate from the University of Liverpool on 3 July 2006. He was Fellow of Poetry at Loughborough University (1973-5) and Honorary Professor at Thames Valley University (1993).
[tubepress mode=”tag” tagValue=”Roger McGough Liverpool Poet” resultsPerPage=”20″ orderBy=”relevance” perPageSort=”viewCount” ]
Poet
Sharon Olds “a poet of sex and the psyche,”
Sharon Olds is one of contemporary poetry’s leading voices. Winner of several prestigious awards, including the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award, Olds is known for writing intensely personal, emotionally scathing poetry which graphically depicts family life as well as global political events.
Sharon Olds ‘a poet of sex and the psyche’: Quote Billie Collins.
[tubepress mode=”tag” tagValue=”Sharon Olds Poet” resultsPerPage=”20″ orderBy=”relevance” perPageSort=”viewCount” ]
John Cooper Clarke The Beasley Street Poet
John Cooper Clarke (born 25 January 1949) is an English performance poet who first became famous during the punk rock era of the late 1970s when he became known as a “punk poet”.He released several albums in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and continues to perform regularly.
His recorded output has mainly centred on musical backing from the Invisible Girls, which featured Martin Hannett, Steve Hopkins, Pete Shelley, Bill Nelson, and Paul Burgess.
In July 2013, Clarke was awarded an honorary doctorate of arts in “acknowledgement of a career which has spanned five decades, bringing poetry to non-traditional audiences and influencing musicians and comedians” by the University of Salford. Upon receipt, Clarke commented: “Now I’m a doctor, finally my dream of opening a cosmetic surgery business can become a reality.”
Clarke’s poem “I Wanna Be Yours” was adapted by Arctic Monkeys and frontman Alex Turner for the band’s fifth album, AM, released on 9 September 2013. Speaking about the poem to the NME ’s Matt Wilkinson, Clarke said:
I wrote it along with a load of others at the time, I tend to write like that. I remember when it was – about ’83 or ’84 or something like that. It’s come to my attention that it’s the wedding favourite. The number of people that have said, “I had that read at my wedding”, or “My husband proposed to me using that number”… It’s been very useful in the world of modern romance! It is to modern wedding ceremonies what “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” by Eric Idle is to humanist funerals. I probably go to a great many more funerals than you do, so take it from me.
[tubepress mode=”tag” tagValue=”John Cooper Clarke Beasley Street” resultsPerPage=”20″ orderBy=”viewCount” perPageSort=”viewCount” ]
editor@artvilla.com
robin@artvilla.com
www.facebook.com/PoetryLifeTimes
www.facebook.com/Artvilla.com
Harry Baker UK Grand Slam Performance Poet.
Harry Baker is the current UK Poetry Slam Champion, heading to represent the UK in the Poetry World Cup in June. He is currently Studying at the University of Bristol. He was going to do medicine before all the poetry started kicking off and he thought he wouldn’t have the time to dedicate to his craft so thought he would switch to something ‘nicer’ like German and Maths.
This has led to Prime Number Poems and Bilingual Raps, and instead of a gap year of writing, traveling and performing his time is now taken up with trying to squeeze poetry in every area of his life (including doing his German Oral Presentation in rap form.)
As part of his adventures so far, he has gone from Gangsta Maths to Dinosaur love, with wicked wordplay and rhymes often interspersed with awful puns. A member of last years brilliant Roundhouse Poetry Collective run by Polarbear, he has also performed solo all around the UK and internationally as far as Chicago, New York, Munich, Warsaw and the summer festival Circuit including Bestival, Latitude and Secret Garden Party.
Harry is also currently working towards his second One-Man show at the Edinburgh Fringe (Proper Pop-up Purple Paper People), attempting to build on last years 5-Star Rated ‘Super-amazing Mega-awesome Gap Year Adventures: Birth of a champion’
[tubepress mode=”tag” tagValue=”Harry Baker Poetry” resultsPerPage=”20″ orderBy=”relevance” perPageSort=”viewCount” ]
editor@artvilla.com
robin@artvilla.com
www.facebook.com/PoetryLifeTimes
www.facebook.com/Artvilla.com
Kate Tempest. Performance & Page Poet.
Kate Tempest (born Kate Esther Calvert, 22 December 1985) is an English poet, spoken word artist and playwright. In 2013 she won the Ted Hughes Award for her work Brand New Ancients.
Tempest first performed when she was 16, at open mic nights at Deal Real, a small hip hop store on Carnaby Street in London’s West End. She went on to support acts such as John Cooper Clarke, Billy Bragg, Benjamin Zephaniah and Scroobius Pip. She toured Europe, Australia and America with her band ‘Sound of Rum’ and worked with organisations such as Yale university, the BBC, Apples and Snakes, The Old Vic and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Tempest has performed at such venues as the Glastonbury Festival, Latitude, The Wandering Word tent at Shambala, The Big Chill and the Nu-Yorican poetry café, where she won two poetry slams. Her first poetry book was Everything Speaks in its Own Way, followed by her first work of theatre, Wasted. At 26, she launched the theatrical spoken word piece Brand New Ancients at the Battersea Arts Centre (2012), to great critical acclaim.The piece also won Tempest the 2013 Off West End Award (“The Offies”) for “Best TBC Production”. Tempest’s influences include Virginia Woolf, Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, W B Yeats, William Blake, W H Auden and Wu-Tang Clan.
In 2014 she released the album Everybody Down (Big Dada), which was produced by Dan Carey and was nominated for the 2014 Mercury Prize.
[tubepress mode=”tag” tagValue=”Kate Tempest Poet” resultsPerPage=”20″ orderBy=”relevance” perPageSort=”viewCount” ]
editor@artvilla.com
robin@artvilla.com
www.facebook.com/PoetryLifeTimes
www.facebook.com/Artvilla.com