Tonight at Noon

There are some big golden anniversaries being celebrated in Liverpool during 2017 - 50 years on from that famous Summer of Love.

Sgt Pepper might just grab most of the headlines.

But while the Fab Four were creating a seminal moment in popular music history, a fab three were doing the same in the world of poetry.

Because 1967 was also the year that the Mersey Sound was released, unleashing the talents of Roger McGough, Brian Patten and Adrian Henri on the world of words. Since it was first published the anthology of work has sold more than 500,000 copies. A new, 50th anniversary edition is being brought out by Penguin in June.

And in the meantime its influence is being celebrated in a series of events - under the Tonight at Noon banner - kicking off this month with two exhibitions opening on the same day, April 12.

Adrian Henri - Painter, Poet, Performer is being staged in St George's Hall until July 15. Not only was he a poet, but the late Adrian Henri was also a trained artist and a member of the not all together successful poetry band The Liverpool Scene, which played the

Isle of Wight festival and even opened for Led Zeppelin on a 1969 tour. The show will feature 1960s artworks, poems and original rock posters offering a glimpse in to Henri’s many talents.

Meanwhile The Mersey Sound Archives are being unveiled in the Hornby Library at Liverpool Central Library. They include displays of original manuscripts, posters, letters and key documents along with audio and visual material which trace the emergence of the trio on the 1960s poetry scene.

Catherine Marcangeli, art historian and Adrian Henri's partner, says: "Their poems were accessible and anchored in contemporary urban culture - oop and popular, irreverent, humorous, political, tender, surrealistic.

"They shaped the poetry, music and art scenes of 1960s Britain, and their work has had a lasting impact on artists as varied as Paul Weller, Carol Ann Duffy and John Cooper Clarke."

Tonight at Noon also includes a Poetry in the City day on May 25 - the date the book was first released.