When I first became involved in Liverpool’s poetry performance scene in late 1991, I wondered if the scene could, to some extent, encompass ideas that I had read about regarding the 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene, which I had read about through my interest in Bob Dylan.
What interested me about that folk scene was not just the music, but the way the whole thing worked as a cultural ecosystem. There were open-floor sessions where relatively unknown performers could take part, but established folk singers would also appear as guest performers. There were folk clubs, folk magazines and folk radio programmes that promoted local performers and events, and these different parts of the scene reinforced one another. This meant that the open floors provided new performers; the established guests brought attention and prestige; the magazines and radio helped spread the word; and the whole process helped create a larger and more vibrant cultural community. This made me wonder whether something similar could be happen for Liverpool poetry.
In October 1991, a poet, David Bateman, whom I had known for a few years, mentioned that there was a relatively new poetry open-floor night called The Evil Dead Poets Society based at The Pilgrim pub in Pilgrim Street. I asked if I could come along and he said yes. At the time, as far as I was aware, this was the first such poetry venue in Liverpool, or at least in the city centre. And by November, I could see that the Greenwich Village folk scene model did have the potential to be transposed onto the Liverpool poetry scene.
One part of my idea was that established poets could appear as guests at the open-floor nights. The local poets would continue to have their opportunity to perform, but occasionally an established poet would be brought in. I thought this could benefit everybody: the guest poet would attract an audience, the local poets would gain exposure, and the Evil Dead Poets would gain a higher profile.
I was also thinking about how local radio could become involved. On 24 November 1991 I discussed with David Bateman the possibility of approaching Radio Merseyside about a regular programme dealing with local poetry readings and events. I also discussed it with Peter Corbett, a local visual artist I knew.
I then wrote a letter to Radio Merseyside suggesting the radio programme idea. Their response was that it could not be done, not because poetry itself was unsuitable for radio (after all, Radio Merseyside already had a weekly poetry programme at that time in which people could send in poems to be read out by the presenters) but because Radio Merseyside represented the whole of Merseyside, and a programme devoted specifically to the Liverpool poetry scene could appear unfair to listeners in other parts of the the region.
Meanwhile, the guest-poet idea was beginning to circulate within the Evil Dead Poets group. At a meeting at the Pilgrim pub on 12 March 1992, a proposal I had written about the idea was discussed alongside another idea that the group had come up with for a second poetry venue with a more structured programme.
Unfortunately, after organising a poetry reading for the Liverpool Festival of Comedy in the summer of 1992, a few members of the Evil Dead Poets fell out with me, for reasons I never fully understood. As this made me feel awkward in their company, I eventually left the group.
The later history of the Liverpool poetry scene, as recounted in David Bateman's 2001 book Gladsongs and Gatherings, describes how, during 1992, the Evil Dead Poets Society developed monthly guest nights alongside its open-floor nights, with regional arts funding helping to support them. The first grant-funded guest night featured the American poet Michael Donaghy in October 1992. The group also changed its name to Dead Good Poets Society that year. When I read this account in the book, I was puzzled that I had not been mentioned in a footnote regarding the idea.
Over the next few years the Liverpool poetry scene expanded considerably. The development of Dead Good Poets was only part of it. There were new poetry groups, library poetry events, workshops, magazines and other performance events. By 1996, performance poetry had become quite high profile in Liverpool's cultural life. The open-floor model continued, and existed alongside guest poets, funded events, workshops, poetry and music fusion events and other forms of collaboration. This was particularly interesting to me because it was the kind of Greenwich Village folk scene ecosystem I had been imagining and advocating for in 1991.
Also in 1996, Radio Merseyside gave the scene some attention, with various one off programmes about the scene in that year.
So, in a few short years, the Liverpool poetry scene had changed dramatically. In 1991 I was suggesting ways to nurture greater visibility for a relatively small poetry scene, and by 1996 there was a much larger and more interconnected poetry scene that was itself generating enough activity to attract radio coverage.
I should point out that I am not claiming that I created Liverpool's poetry renaissance in the 1990s. That would be absurd. There were many other poets, organisers, arts workers, venues, libraries and funding bodies involved, and the scene developed through the efforts of many people.
But I do think the fact that I was proposing this particular model at such an early stage is worth mentioning. In doing so, I was merely taking something I had read about in books about Bob Dylan and the Greenwich Village folk revival and trying to adapt it to Liverpool poetry in 1991.
