Brian Patten at the Dukes, April 2001
Press Release
Brian Patten, one of the most accessible and popular poets working today, will be at the Dukes on Wednesday 25th April 2001 at 7.30pm and he will read selections from Armada, his latest collection. Brian Patten made his name in the 60s as one of the Liverpool poets alongside Adrian Mitchell, Adrian Henri and Roger McGough and has been writing and performing poetry ever since.
Brian’s mix of serious and humorous work makes him hard to equal in performance. With a reputation enhanced by each of his collections he is acknowledged as one of Europe’s foremost poets. Brian Patten has read alongside such figures as Pablo Neruda, Stevie Smith and Robert Lowell. Armada, Brian’s critically acclaimed new book, is a collection of remarkable poems offering sharp, witty and challenging insights into life and the human condition.
The powerful opening section interweaves poems about the death of his mother and memories of his childhood with her, and is his most personal and universal book to date. He says: " I feel that poetry permits us to wake up our memory and association and view familiar things in a different way. If I was to define poetry, I would say, ‘One of the many things a poem can do Is remind us what we forgot we knew’".
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