Adrian Mitchell

Adrian Mitchell was born near Hampstead Heath, north London. His mother, Kathleen Fabian, was a Fröbel-trained nursery school teacher and his father, Jock Mitchell, a research chemist from Cupar in Fife. Adrian was educated at the Junior School of Monkton Combe School in Bath. He then went to Greenways School, at Ashton Gifford House in Wiltshire, run at the time by a friend of his mother. This, said Mitchell, was "a school in Heaven, where my first play, The Animals' Brains Trust, was staged when I was nine to my great satisfaction."^[9]

His schooling was completed as a boarder at

Inheriting enough money to live on for a year, I wrote my first novel and my first TV play. Soon afterwards I became a freelance journalist, writing about pop music for the

Sunday Times. I quit journalism in the mid-Sixties and since then have been a free-falling poet, playwright and writer of stories.^[9]

In "Loose Leaf Poem", from Ride the Nightmare, Mitchell wrote:

My brain socialist

My heart anarchist

My eyes pacifist

My blood revolutionary^[12]

He was in the habit of stipulating in any preface to his collections: "None of the work in this book is to be used in connection with any

I was run over by the truth one day.

Ever since the accident I’ve walked this way

So stick my legs in plaster

Tell me lies about Vietnam

He first read it to thousands of

In 1972, he confronted then-prime minister Edward Heath about germ warfare and the war in Northern Ireland.^[13]

His poem "Victor Jara" was set to music by Arlo Guthrie and included on his 1976 album Amigo.

Mitchell was later responsible for the well-respected stage adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, a production of the Royal Shakespeare Company that premiered in November 1998.

According to writer Jan Woolf, "He never let up. Most calls—'Can you do this one, Adrian?'—were answered, 'Sure, I'll be there.' His reading of 'Tell Me Lies' at a City Hall benefit just before the 2003 invasion of Iraq was electrifying. Of course, he couldn't stop that war, but he performed as if he could."^[14]

One

Mitchell died at the age of 76 in a North London hospital, following a suspected heart attack. For two months he had been suffering from pneumonia. Two days earlier he had completed what turned out to be his last poem, "My Literary Career So Far".^[3] He intended it as a Christmas gift to "all the friends, family and animals he loved".

"Adrian", said fellow poet

Mitchell is survived by his wife, the actress Celia Hewitt, whose bookshop, Ripping Yarns, was[17] in Highgate, and their two daughters Sasha and Beattie. He also has two sons and a daughter from his previous marriage to Maureen Bush: Briony, Alistair and Danny, with nine grandchildren.^[9] Mitchell and his wife had adopted Boty Goodwin (1966–1995), daughter of the artist Pauline Boty, following the death of her father, literary agent Clive Goodwin, in 1978. Following Boty Goodwin's death from a heroin overdose, Mitchell wrote the poem "Especially when it snows" in her memory.^[18]

Selected bibliography

• If You See Me Comin', novel (Jonathan Cape, 1962)
• Poems (Jonathan Cape, 1964; 978-0224608732)
• Out Loud (Cape Goliard, 1968)
• Ride the Nightmare (Cape, 1971;
  ISBN 978-0224005630
  )
• Tyger: A Celebration Based on the Life and Works of William Blake (Cape, 1971;
  ISBN 978-0224006521
  )
• The Apeman Cometh (Cape, 1975;
  ISBN 978-0224011471
  )
• Man Friday, novel (Futura, 1975;
  ISBN 978-0860072744
  )
• For Beauty Douglas: Collected Poems 1953–79, illus.
  ISBN 978-0850313994
  )
• On the Beach at Cambridge: New Poems (Allison and Busby, 1984;
  ISBN 978-0850315639
  )
• Nothingmas Day, illus. John Lawrence (Allison & Busby, 1984;
  ISBN 978-0850315325
  )
• Love Songs of World War Three: Collected Stage Lyrics (Allison and Busby, 1988;
  ISBN 978-0850319910
  )
• All My Own Stuff, illus. Frances Lloyd (
  ISBN 978-0750004466
  )
• Adrian Mitchell's Greatest Hits – The Top Forty, illus. Ralph Steadman (
  ISBN 978-1852241643
  )
• Blue Coffee: Poems 1985–1996 (Bloodaxe, 1996; 1997 reprint,
  ISBN 978-1852243623
  )
• Heart on the Left: Poems 1953–1984 (Bloodaxe, 1997;
  ISBN 978-1852244255
  )
• Balloon Lagoon and Other Magic Islands of Poetry, illus.
  ISBN 978-1860396595
  )
• Nobody Rides the Unicorn, illus. Stephen Lambert (Corgi Children's, new edn 2000;
  ISBN 978-0552546171
  )
• All Shook Up: Poems 1997–2000 (Bloodaxe, 2000;
  ISBN 978-1852245139
  )
• The Shadow Knows: Poems 2001–2004 (Bloodaxe, 2004)
• Tell Me Lies: Poems 2005–2008, illus. Ralph Steadman (Bloodaxe, 2009;
  ISBN 978-1852248437
  )
• Umpteen Pockets, illus. Tony Ross (
  ISBN 978-1408303634
  )
• Daft as a Doughnut (Orchard Books, 2009;
  ISBN 978-1408308073
  )
• Shapeshifters: Tales from Ovid's Metamorphoses, illus. Alan Lee (
  ISBN 978-1845075361
  )
• Come on Everybody: Poems 1953–2008 (Bloodaxe, 2012;
  ISBN 978-1852249465
  )
• Just Adrian (United Kingdom: Oberon Books, 2012.
  ISBN 978-1849430470
  )

• 1961: Eric Gregory Award
• 1966:
  PEN Translation Prize
• 1971: Tokyo Festival Television Film Award
• 2005: CLPE Poetry Award (shortlist) for Daft as a Doughnut

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Adrian Mitchell.

• Official website
• The Poetry Archive
• Adrian Mitchell at British Council: Literature
• The Argotist interview (1996)
• Arlo Guthrie/Victor Jara on
  YouTube – 1978 recording of "Victor Jara" by the band Shenandoah (poem "Victor Jara" by Adrian Mitchell; music by Arlo Guthrie
  )

• To the memory of Adrian Mitchell World Socialist web site
• Michael Horovitz, "Adrian Mitchell: Poet and playwright whose work was driven by his pacifist politics", The Independent, 23 December 2008.
• Michael Kustow, "Poet Adrian Mitchell dies, aged 76", The Guardian, 21 December 2008.
• "Adrian Mitchell", Daily Telegraph, 13 January 2009.
• "Adrian Mitchell: protest poet and prose writer", The Times, 23 December 2008.
• William Grimes, "Adrian Mitchell, British Poetry’s Voice of the Left, Dies at 76", The New York Times, 23 December 2008.
• Dan Carrier, "‘Adrian was a genius. He was a tender, political poet who never compromised’", Camden New Journal, 23 December 2008.
• Michael Rosen, "Passionate poet unafraid of the big stuff", The Times, 23 December 2008.
• "Shadow on the sun", Red Pepper, March 2009.