Bernardino Nera Annalisa Talamo. The Liverpool Scene. English Poetry in the Sixties

Transcription

1 Bernardino Nera Annalisa Talamo The Liverpool Scene English Poetry in the Sixties

2 Copyright MMIX ARACNE editrice S.r.l. via Raffaele Garofalo, 133 A/B Roma (06) ISBN I diritti di traduzione, di memorizzazione elettronica, di riproduzione e di adattamento anche parziale, con qualsiasi mezzo, sono riservati per tutti i Paesi. Non sono assolutamente consentite le fotocopie senza il permesso scritto dell Editore. I edizione: aprile 2009

3 Indice Presentazione... 7 Lead in Step 1: The City Text 1: Liverpool (R. McGough) Text 2: Liverpool 8 (A. Henri) Text 3: Poem for Liverpool 8 (A. Henri) Text 4: Limestreetscene 64 (R. McGough) Text 5: Mrs Albion you ve got a lovely daughter (A. Henri) Step 2: Adolescence Social And Cultural Background Text 1: Little Johnny s Confession (B. Patten) Text 2: Little Johnny s Change of Personality (B. Patten) Text 3: Little Johnny takes a trip to another planet (B. Patten).. 78 Text 4: Little Johnny s Final Letter (B. Patten) Text 5: Ah Johnny, what when you re older? (B. Patten) Text 6: Let me die a young man s death (R. McGough) Step 3: The Bomb Social And Cultural Background

4 6 Indice Text 1: Bomb Commercials (A. Henri) Text 2: Bombscare (B. Patten) Text 3: Little Johnny s Foolish Invention (B. Patten) Text 4: Before it happened (B. Patten) Text 5: Mother, the wardrobe is full of infantrymen (McGough) Text 6: M61 (R. McGough) Step 4: Visual Arts in Poetry Social And Cultural Background Text 1: Batpoem (A. Henri) Text 2: Goodbat Nightman (R. McGough) Text 3: Where are you now Superman? (B. Patten) Text 4: Tonight at noon (A. Henri) Text 5: It all started yesterday evening (R. McGough) Text 6: Monika, the tea things are taking over (R. McGough)

5 LEAD IN TEXT 1 Read the following extract from the Introduction to The Liverpool Scene, written by Edward Lucie Smith and published in The Liverpool Scene was born in the very early sixties. Pete Brown, more usually associated with jazz and poetry readings 1 in London and the South of England, gives a lively account of it: Well, this is the poetry thing really: I mean the atmosphere and the people were there already, definitely, and it was very sort of ripe. Late in 1960 Spike Hawkins and I were living in London but we met up with a team of people from Liverpool at the Beaulieu Jazz Festival in 1960 and they said, you know, that things were good up there and that we should come up and sort of enjoy ourselves. Well Spike and I got into conditions of extreme and dire poverty, so one night he hitched up there and accepted the invitation. They had this coffee bar there which was run by a very extraordinary guy it was named after some Liverpool Victorian person, Mr Somebody Streate, and was called Streate s Coffee Bar because of this painting they had of him there. This guy that used to run it was a very good guy. That was the centre of activity and meetings. Finally Spike and another guy called Johnny Byrne, who s an Irishman who was living in Liverpool at that time and was a friend of Adrian Henri s they started these readings up there. The readings well, Adrian, in fact, hadn t written any poetry for about six or maybe more years before that he knew all about 1 The activity of jazz and poetry in concert started in London at Hampstead Town Hall on 4th February That first concert was a surprise both for the audience and the participants. A lot of people could not get into the overcrowded hall so a second poetry reading was held at the Royal Festival Hall on 11 th July in a very hot summer afternoon. The day after the Daily Herald wrote: Yesterday the poets were at the Festival Hall and read their poems and three thousand people welcomed them like they usually do to big names of music. 11

6 12 Lead in it, of course, the things that were happening in poetry but he hadn t written any, and Brian Patten and Roger McGough were completely and absolutely unknown, and the fact of having regular sessions at this place brought them into the light and made Adrian start writing again. This was early 61. That s how the poetry in Liverpool began, certainly, because I mean Roger and Brian just turned up at respective times when we were there and asked if they could read. And Roger at that time was a school teacher and Brian was, as far as I know, oh well, he was a cub reporter on The Bootle Times. Needless to say, various points in this account are contested by other people who claim to have been on the spot. 1. Look at line 1: what is meant by Liverpool Scene? Choose among the following suggestions: 1) The panorama of the city. 2) The local current situation of a particular cultural and artistic activity and the people who were part of it. 3) A group of artists who lived and worked in the city, animating its cultural atmosphere. 2. Go very quickly through the text again and decide, with a partner: line 5: poetry thing means line 5: I refers to line 6: there refers to line 10: things refers to line 13: they refers to line 14: it refers to line 15: what does Victorian mean? line 15: is Somebody, Mr Streate s real name? If not, why does Pete Brown call him that way? line 17: him refers to

7 Lead in 13 line 17: this guy is line 18: that refers to line 21: they refers to line 23: it refers to line 27: them refers to line 29: this refers to line 31: we refers to line 31: they refers to line 32: that time refers to line 33: he refers to line 33 34: The Bootle Times is line 36: the spot refers to 3. Now complete the following chart: WHEN (report of events) WHO (characters) WHERE (setting) WAY OF EARNING A LIVING INTERESTS You can find more information about the Liverpool Poets on the web site: and its related links. 4. Now focus your attention on the last column of the chart and on line 21 of the text: they started these readings up there. What is the unusual, peculiar and new cultural element in this quotation? What is meant by poetry reading?

8 14 Lead in 5. Since poetry was communicated directly to the public listening to it during the readings, the channel used by the poets was mostly their voice, no more exclusively the printed pages of books, so we can regard it as oral poetry. Can you think of any other examples of oral poetry in the English literary tradition? 6. Finally discuss, with your class, the following Henri s statement (taken from The Liverpool Scene): As a communication mechanism, poetry, particularly the way I do it at the moment, is not that often published and it is read out loud. It s like a telephone, you know, and a telephone is a perfect communication system. You put a message in one end and it goes through and comes out the other. Poetry is like that! If you read poems to an audience you can tell whether they hate them or not, or if they like them, or laugh at them. TEXT 2 Read the following extracts taken from the Introduction to The Liverpool Scene (1967). Roger McGough talking: If you re, say, between the age of 15 and 98, and you say: I m writing poetry, you wouldn t think of going to London, you d stay in Liverpool, because Liv-

9 Lead in 15 5 erpool is a scene now. Ten years ago one would have gone towards where the poetry scene was to London. I don t think it s a Liverpool thing as opposed to a Newcastle thing or a Birmingham thing; I think of it as a Liverpool thing as opposed to a London thing, or a public school thing. *** The relationship between metropolitan and provincial culture is one of the basic themes of this Introduction. Poets in Liverpool, like provincial writers and artists everywhere in England, seem to hover between two contradictory sets of attitudes. London inspires fear and resentment a fear of being brushed aside, a resentment of slights either real or imagined. It also arouses mockery for its inhibitions and its pretentiousness. Liverpool poets feel a real sympathy for their environment, but an even greater loyalty A man trying to write poetry in Liverpool usually has the attitude of a frontiersman: life is harder, but in some ways cleaner and better. It is more genuine, closer to essential values. *** 25 The success of the Beatles had a seismic effect on the provincial culture as a whole. For the first time London had been left out in the cold till the very last minute. The upsurge of the groups went on for a long time after the Beatles had established themselves as international idols Some of this glory was reflected on to the poets. 1. Go through the text and decide, working in pairs: line 1: you refers to line 2: I refers to line 4: one refers to

10 16 Lead in line 6: I refers to lines 6 8: thing means line 8: public school in England is: a) state school. b) private school line 12: hover means: a) being in a state of indecision. b) make a decision, a choice. lines 12 14: look at the context of the clause: London inspires. How would you translate into Italian the word slights (line 14)? a) Inezie, piccolezze, cose di poca importanza. b) Insuccessi, smacchi, sconfitte. line 14: it refers to line 15: its refers to line 19: it refers to line 23: upsurge means: a) an increase. b) a decrease. 2. Focus your attention on McGough s statement, lines 6 8 of the extracts above; why does the poet associate London with public school? What does he want to hint at? Choose, between the following ones, the suggestion that you think the most suitable: a) He wants to emphasize the contrast between the academic cultural world of the capital city of England and the popular cultural dimension of the English provinces. b) He wants to imply a process of cultural democratization and decentralization taking place in England during the 60s, at the expenses of the academic world, identified with London, considered as the symbol of the official elitist culture. 3. Go through the extracts again and focus your attention on the author s view on the relationship between metropolitan and provincial

11 Lead in 17 culture, then sum up his ideas and transfer the key concepts in the following chart: METROPOLITAN CULTURE PROVINCIAL CULTURE POSITIVE NEGATIVE POSITIVE NEGATIVE 4. Look at lines 19 20: which are the essential values the author refers to?

12 18 Lead in 5. Finally draw a similar chart as above and transfer in it your personal views on the issue metropolitan life versus provincial life, then compare and discuss your suggestions with your class pro or/and against. METROPOLITAN LIFE PROVINCIAL LIFE POSITIVE NEGATIVE POSITIVE NEGATIVE