Adrian Henri

Adrian Maurice Henri (born April 10, 1932 in Birkenhead , Merseyside , England , † December 20, 2000 ) was a British poet who, in addition to Roger McGough and Brian Patten, represented the style of young poets called Mersey Sound in the late 1960s.

biography

His first poems appeared in 1967 together with works by Brian Patten and Roger McGough in the extraordinarily successful tenth volume of Penguin Modern Poets 10 under the title The Mersey Sound and belonged to the so-called "Liverpool Poets" along with McGough and Patten. The volume was so successful that it appeared in 1974 and 1983 in expanded new editions.

The book's success led to his performing with the multimedia artistic performance group Liverpool Scene between 1968 and 1970 .

His most extensive work is the inquiring, honest and at the same time uninfluenced anthology Autobiography (1971). His later collections of poetry include The Best of Henri (1975), From the Loveless Motel (1980), Penny Arcade (1983), Wish You Were Here (1990), and Not Fade Away (1994). Together with the Scottish poet Carol Ann Duffy , he published the volume of poems Beauty and the Beast in 1977 .

In 2000 he was one of the recipients of the Cholmondeley Award given by the Society of Authors .

In addition to his writing activities, he was also active as a painter , whereby his work contained the same immediate Pop Art culture as his literary works.

Group exhibitions

• 2012: Happiness is a warm gun. Art perspectives in Liverpool and Cologne , cultural work of the BBK in the Stapelhaus (Cologne)

Background literature

• Jonathan Raban: The Society of the Poem . Harrap, London 1971, ISBN 0-245-50799-X .

swell

• Una McGovern (Ed.): Chambers Biographical Dictionary . 7th edition. Chambers Press, Edinburgh 2002, ISBN 0-550-10051-2 , pp. 707f.