'Liverpool is Where the Heart is'. The Image of the City in the Liverpool Poetry of the Sixties

Abstract

The Merseysound is the poetic movement that developed in Liverpool in the Sixties, and it represents one of the expressions of a wider Underground literary movement. Its main feature is the emphasis placed on the urban theme and Liverpool’s landscape. For Adrian Henri, Roger McGough and Brian Patten, the three representatives of the Merseysound, Liverpool is a very important cultural and emotional entity that is reflected and narrated through their poetry. The Poets’ link with Liverpool is deeper than the one established between Londoners and the capital city: it is entrenched in pride, loyalty and a sense of belonging inspired by the provincial town itself, like it were their inspiring muse. The Mersey Poets have been called the “metropolitan poets” because of their great concern for Liverpool, almost mirroring the feelings Baudelaire had for 19th-century suburban Paris. The three poets develop an urban imagery that evocates Liverpool’s buildings, citizens and districts as spiritual and structural elements of the city itself. Liverpool becomes a place where reality and surrealism – and even magic – meet. In the essay, examples from the poems by the Mersey Poets’ are examined, poems in which the structural elements of the ‘cityscape’ are evoked.