JOHN BURNS is a poet and loves poetry, but he’s not happy about the state of the art. John challenges his fellow poets to grasp the challenge of writing for the world we now live in, or join Willie the hamster at the bottom of the garden.

POETRY IS DEAD. It is time we all accepted that and stopped dragging a corpse around with us. Let’s stop wasting everyone’s time and just bury it at the bottom of the garden, next to Willy the hamster who had an unfortunate encounter with next door’s cat.
 

Okay so I exaggerate, poetry isn’t quite dead, but it is on life support and if we switched off the machine it couldn’t breathe unaided. If you don’t believe me, try and get an audience for a performance poet or find the poetry section in a station bookshop.
 

Ask a few folk who the poet laureate is, the current heavyweight champ of verse, and they’ll look at you with blank incomprehension. That question could get you the big one on “Who wants to be a millionaire?”
 

I remember when I first saw a real performance poet. I was seventeen and living in Merseyside. One evening I caught the old ferry across the murky waters of the Mersey and walked up through the shabby streets of Liverpool to the Everyman theatre. There I entered a strange and fascinating world, populated by young men and women clad in cheesecloth and blue denim, the air permeated by the smell of an unusual brand of herbal tobacco.
 

I fitted in completely, my long dark hair falling over the collar of a vast army great coat and just enough money for one pint of cider in the theatre bar. The lights dimmed and a trembling young man, his head a mass of thick curls, walked slowly on to the stage where he mesmerised the audience with his rare and captivating imagery.
 

I didn’t know it then but I was privileged, for this was a young Brian Patten, who was then and still is one of the best romantic poets of a generation. Along with Adrian Henri and Roger McGough, collectively known as the Merseybeat poets, he championed a revival of poetry on Merseyside that has left a lasting legacy.
 

That was a long time ago, the army great coat and, alas, my flowing dark hair, have long since gone but what has remained with me is an abiding love of poetry. Why then would I want to lay poetry to rest?
 

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