Adrian Mitchell's poetry’s simplicity, clarity, passion and humour show his allegiance to a vital, popular tradition embracing William Blake as well as the ballads and the blues. His most nakedly political poems – about war, Vietnam, prisons and racism – became part of the folklore of the Left, sung and recited at demonstrations and mass rallies. His childlike questioning was a constant reminder from the 60s onwards that poetry is first and foremost an assertion of the human spirit.
A pacifist prophet who remained true to his heartfelt beliefs, Mitchell reported back for over half a century from a world blighted by war, compromise, double-talk and pragmatism without losing his innocence, integrity and impish sense of humour. Angela Carter described him as a ‘joyous, acrid and demotic tumbling lyricist Pied Piper determinedly singing us away from catastrophe’.
A Poetry Book Society Choice, Blue Coffee was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Now out of print, the whole collection is included in Come On Everybody: Poems 1953-2008.
- ISBN13 9781852243623
- Publish Date 25 April 1996
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 26 June 2012
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Bloodaxe Books Ltd
- Format Paperback
- Pages 160
- Language English