The Mersey Sound (book) - Legacy

Legacy

The three poets in The Mersey Sound paved the way for later performance and "people's" poets, such as John Cooper Clarke, Benjamin Zephaniah, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Attila the Stockbroker, John Hegley and others who "have pursued the goal of creating poetry for a wide audience".

The idea of titling after a river was later adopted by The Medway Poets in 1979. They read with Henri, McGough and Patten on occasion.

Paul Weller of The Jam has expressed his admiration for the poets, particularly Henri. The second Jam album This Is the Modern World has a track with the same title as the Henri poem, "Tonight At Noon" and the lyrics are a collage tribute to Henri's poetry.

The book was one which stayed with some of its readers for years afterwards, and could help form bonds, as 1960s reader of it, Sid Smith, describes:

Flashing forward to the 90s and I’ve just met a woman called Debra at a party. We are introduced by a mutual friend and get talking. Somehow poetry comes into the conversation. “One of my favourite collections is The Mersey Sound” she tells me and in that moment I knew my life was going to change forever.

As the early readers of the book got families of their own, they could find the simple language and rhyme of some of the poems suitable for bedtime reading for their children. In addition all three poets went on to also write dedicated and successful books of children's poetry.

In 2002 the three poets were given the Freedom of the City of Liverpool.