Adrian Mitchell, Poet and Honorary Bluesman

It's hard to believe that Adrian Mitchell left us almost two years ago, on 20 December 2008.

This version of "Tell me Lies" is as powerful as when he first wrote it in the 1960s.

I first heard him perform and read "out loud" in 1967.

I received this letter from him, with his typically generous and enthusiastic comments, back in 1968. It was typed on both sides of a thin sheet, with a red typewriter ribbon.

I interviewed him at his house back in 1979 and this is just one short quotation from a long, five page interview published in March 1979:

"I'd really like to have been a blues-singer, like Bessie Smith or Big Joe Turner. The words in the blues are fantastic; they hit very closely to what I feel, a lot of the time. It's my favourite kind of music. The most natural way of delivering poetry is to speak it- to sing and dance it preferably...but I'm no good at singing...I mean I'm "educated", you know- I was taught not to sing and dance, really ...! Poetry should get back to singing and dancing."

I last met Adrian in Sweden in 2002.

One song of his I've never stopped singing since circa 1968 is "Icarus Shmicarus":

"If you never spend your money
you know you'll always have some cash....
and if you crawl along the ground
at least you'll never crash.
So why why why-
WHAT MADE YOU THINK YOU COULD FLY?"

 See Adrian's website archive

and Michael Rosen's moving Guardian piece about an inspiring poet