Abstract
Liverpool Poet
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Patten’s new poem, Now, Wash Your Hands, written exclusively for Index and published below, critiques how children’s talents are surpressed by a rigid school curriculum which defines intelligence through exams. It also, argues Patten, crushes their creativity and ideas.
“Many teachers despair at having their hands tied by exams,” said Patten, one of the three Liverpool Poets whose rebellious style made them famous in the 1960s. “They despair that no time is available to coax and nurture talents or ambitions that don’t fit into preconceived notions. Exams are dictated by people whose sole idea of the purpose of education is to prepare children for Oxbridge.”
Liverpool Poet Brian Patten
CREDIT: Chris Greave
Patten became a radical voice in the world of poetry, when Liverpool was the focal point of a music and arts revolution. It was led by The Beatles and took the world by storm. Patten captured this mood alongside Adrian Henri and Roger McGough in their anthology The Mersey Sound, subsequently earning the trio the freedom of the city of Liverpool in 2001.
“ [We challenged] the assumption that poetry was something high-brow and for an elite,” he said. “We mixed poetry and humour and treated poetry readings as theatrical performance rather than recitals. One literary critic wrote: ‘They write for the great unwashed.’ Another wrote that it was appalling how anyone could consider it poetry.”
Fast-forward more than 50 years since the best-selling anthology was first released and Patten is still writing. Featured alongside one of his latest poems, Now, Wash Your Hands which he wrote exclusively for Index, Patten has also given Index permission to publish, The Minister for Exams, which similarly focuses on the consequences of exams and the suppression of children’s imagination as a result.
“I’m not saying we should leave children to splash paint around and do only what they want at school,” said Patten, who is working on a new collection and memoir. “What I am saying is that schools are now so focused on exams that those children who are ‘not good’ at exams – but who have emerging talent not covered by standardised assessment – are being ignored. I mean all kinds of creative children – tomorrow’s craftsmen, inventors, dreamers, musicians, chefs, actors, builders, film-makers, architects. all these and more.”
Patten knows how children can strive when their voices are heard and teachers allow them to nurture their talents – something he now thanks his own teachers for doing.
Having started school at the age of five, Patten was the last to learn how to read in his class. When his headmaster, Mr Wooly, once stormed into a classroom and pulled him out, he assumed he was in big trouble.
“I thought he’d found out about some misdemeanour – smoking or fighting,” Patten said.
“Instead it was because of an essay I’d written. He moved me to the A-stream where I was taught by Mr Sutcliffe. He read horror stories to the class and told us about his life at sea. He even tried to get us to like opera. A failed experiment, but when he told the story of the Flying Dutchman, doomed by the devil to sail the oceans, we were all ears. He encouraged me to write. Let me off other lessons to do so.”
Now, Wash Your Hands
First, take out the entire tongue.
Flatten it on a sterilised board.
Cut out the bit that asks, ‘Why?’
Next, feeling along the underside you will find
The little lump that says, ‘but I’d rather do.’
Dispose of this as well.
On the tip of the tongue you will discover
The place where unspoken words ferment
Cut. Add to the pile.
Sew the child’s tongue back in.
Now, wash your hands.
Go and wash your hands.
The Minister For Exams
When I was a child I sat an exam.
This test was so simple
There was no way I could fail.
Ql. Describe the taste of the Moon.
It tastes like Creation I wrote,
it has the flavour of starlight.
Q2. What colour is Love?
Love is the colour of the water a man
lost in the desert finds, I wrote.
Q3. Why do snowflakes melt?
I wrote, they melt because they fall
on to the warm tongue of God.
There were other questions.
They were as simple.
I described the grief of Adam
when he was expelled from Eden.
I wrote down the exact weight of an elephant’s dream
Yet today, many years later,
For my living I sweep the streets
or clean out the toilets of the fat hotels.
Why? Because constantly I failed my exams.
Why? Well, let me set a test.
Ql. How large is a child’s imagination?
Q2. How shallow is the soul of the Minister for Exams?