McGough, Roger

(1937- )

   Born in Liverpool, he was educated at St. Mary's College, Crosby, Liverpool, and graduated from Hull University, then worked as a teacher in Liverpool. Between 1963 and 1973 he was a member of the pop music and poetry group "The Scaffold" and was one of the "Liverpool Poets" with Adrian Henri and Brian Patten (see entries). He was fellow of poetry at the University of Loughborough (1973-1975), and honorary professor at Thames Valley University (1993). He wrote the lyrics for an adaptation of The Wind in the Willows, first staged in Washington, D.C., in 1984 and transferring to Broadway in 1995. He has written for and presented programs on BBC Radio, including Poetry Please and Home Truths. His live poetry album, Lively, is on CD. He won British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards in 1985 and 1993 and poetry awards in 1984 and 1999; in 1997 he received the Order of the British Empire and was made Commander in 2004. Some of his poems: "First Day at School," "Mother the Wardrobe is Full of Infantrymen," "Noah's Ark," "Prayer to Saint Grobianus," "Summer with Monika," "The Kleptomaniac," "The Newly Pressed Suit."

   Sources: British Council Arts (http://www.contemporarywriters.com). Messages: A Thematic Anthology of Poetry. X.J. Kennedy, ed. Little, Brown, 1973. Splinters: A Book of Very Short Poems. Michael Harrison, ed. Oxford University Press, 1989. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Mersey Sound: Penguin Modern Poets 10 (Roger McGough, Adrian Henri and Brian Patten). Penguin, revised edition, 1980. The New Oxford Book of Children's Verse. Neil Philip, ed. Oxford University Press, 1996. The Oxford Book of Comic Verse. John Gross, ed. Oxford University Press, 1994. The Oxford Book of Story Poems. Michael Harrison and Christopher Stuart-Clark, eds. Oxford University Press, 1990. The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century English Verse. Philip Larkin, ed. Oxford University Press, 1973. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Kingfisher Book of Children's Poetry. Michael Rosen, ed. Kingfisher Books, 1985. Who's Who. London: A & C Black, 2005.