The Mersey Sound: Restored 50th Anniversary Edition

by Adrian Henri, Brian Patten, and Roger McGough

'I wanted your soft verges
But you gave me the hard shoulder'

The Mersey Sound brought poetry down from the shelf and on to the street, capturing the mood of the Sixties and speaking to real lives with its irreverent, wry, freewheeling verses of young love, petrol-pump attendants, CND leaflets and bus journey capers. Bringing together the hugely influential work of Adrian Henri, Roger McGough and Brian Patten - the 'Liverpool Poets' - this perennially beloved volume is the bestselling poetry anthology of all time. Now, for its fiftieth anniversary, this edition restores the original text of the book as it first appeared in 1967: energetic, raw and a true record of its era.

• ISBN10: 0141189266
• ISBN13: 9780141189260
• Publish Date: 7 June 2007 (first published 26 June 1986)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 31 March 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Imprint: Penguin Classics
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 144
• Language: English

Reviews

[brokentune]

I read this on a recent trip to Liverpool when I had some time to sit in between the two cathedrals on Hope Street, where I think Roger McGough had a flat once.

It's a fine collection of poems that reflect the vibrant and sometimes slightly bizarre minds of their creators. I guess at the time of writing Henri, Patten and McGough were still trying to find themselves as much as they were trying to, not define, but capture a glimpse of the vibe of the late sixties in the place where so much of British pop culture began.

I only wish more of the poems could have found themselves onto a Scaffold record.