Feature: Event - Heart on the Left, at Highgate Library - Celebration of poet Adrian Mitchell

Published: 28 January 2010
by DAN CARRIER

HIS voice acted as a poetical reality check for those in power, and the death of poet Adrian Mitchell in December 2008 robbed the Left of one of its most potent writers.
But his immense legacy continues to inspire and enthral. And to celebrate his life and work, the Friends of Highgate Library are holding an evening of his poetry next week. 
The event will feature readings by his wife Celia and their daughter Sasha, who will be joined by actor Roger Lloyd Pack and poet Jehane Markham, friends of Adrian. 
The night also promises contributions from the audience, who will share anecdotes and memories of Adrian.Celia plans to read a poem about the left-wing playwright David Mercer, called “Elegance Is A Small Thing”. “It was written about David, but it reminds me so much of Adrian,” she says. “He was a big guy, with a big imagination.”
The event will be informal, she says: “We want people to come along and as well as read poems, we want people to talk about Adrian.”
The event will also see the launch of Adrian’s last books, primarily aimed at teenagers and children. Called Shape Shifters: Tales from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Frances Lincoln Children’s Books) and Umpteen Pockets (Orchard Books), they contain Adrian’s prose and poetry written before his death. 
Actor Roger Lloyd-Pack worked with Adrian at the theatre company Wonderful Beasts, which specialises in storytelling. 
“I’d always been in awe of him,” he recalls. “He was a hero. He took a stance on pacifism and politics, which he never compromised. 
“And he was angry about injustice, and that powered him.”
And Roger also admired the way Adrian could write for all – that he made his work accessible to as many people as possible.
“He was a great debunker of pomposity,” he said. “Most people ignore poetry because it ignores them. 
“He wrote stuff people could understand.”
Roger has chosen to read a poem Adrian wrote about Shakespeare, which starts with the lines: “My name is William Shakespeare, best poet in Britain, and these are the plays, what I have written...”
“He was a Renaissance man,” says Roger. 

• Heart on the Left, celebrating Adrian Michell’s work, is on Thursday February 4 at 7.30pm at Highgate Library, Chester Road, N19.