ROGER MCGOUGH: The rhythm of life

Roger McGough’s poems convey the beauty of everyday language, says Richard Fitzpatrick

ROGER McGough, whom fellow poet Carol Ann Duffy famously described as “the patron saint of poetry”, fell in love with poems in unusual circumstances: he was in physics class at his Christian Brothers School in Crosby, a town outside Liverpool.

“When I was in school, we used to have English lessons, and it was a case of, ‘Now we’re doing poetry today. Open your Palgrave’s Golden Treasury and turn to Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’.’ Yawn. But then we had quite a fierce brother, called Brother Ryan, who taught us physics. We were terrified of him.