News at Eleven: There is naivety, too, though of a

characteristically charming sort, in his stated belief in "the brotherhood of poetry. I felt, with my first poem, that I had entered this brotherhood. Which turned out not to be the case."

The Liverpool poets emerged from the culture created by the beat generation in the United States but while McGough gladly embraced the freedoms proposed by Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, Corso and others, both in verse-making and in everyday life, he was the beat you could take home to meet mum.

from The Guardian: A life in poetry: Roger McGough

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