Roger McGough
Roger McGough
Roger McGough CBE FRSLis an English poet, performance poet, broadcaster, children's author and playwright. He presents the BBC Radio 4 programme Poetry Please, as well as performing his own poetry. McGough was one of the leading members of the Liverpool poets, a group of young poets influenced by Beat poetry and the popular music and culture of 1960s Liverpool. He is an honorary fellow of Liverpool John Moores University, fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and President of the...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth9 November 1937
Whereas with poetry no one has to show anybody really, and you don't have to tell anyone you're doing it.
Better is a big ambition. Some people don't want that ambition as a writer. Some people seem to want to unsettle the reader. I don't know.
If I decide to be indecisive, that's my decision
I could never begin a poem: 'When I am dead' In case it tempted Fate, and Fate gave way.
I'm terrified of switching the computer on because there are so many poems
Yes, you can feel very alone as a poet and you sometimes think, is it worth it? Is it worth carrying on? But because there were other poets, you became part of a scene. Even though they were very different writers, it made it easier because you were together
Do people who wave at trains Wave at the driver, or at the train itself? Or, do people who wave at trains Wave at the passengers? Those hurtling strangers, The unidentifiable flying faces?
Let me die a youngman's death not a clean and in-between- the-sheets, holy-water death.
by thus keeping one pace ahead of myself I need never catch up with the truth.
You will put on a dress of guilt and shoes with broken high ideals.
There's the moon trying to look romanticMoon's too old that's her troubleAren't we all?
The only problem with Haiku is that you just get started and then
I wish the word whimsical wasn't used now.
I was put off by people at school - my cabbage wasn't as good as other people's, you know, so that put me off.