LIVERPOOL PRESENTS: SGT PEPPER AT 5

Music and poetry combine in this lyrical look at the ageing process in response to Paul McCartney’s When I’m Sixty-Four as thirteen international poets have been invited to create new work for the project.

McCartney first composed the song when he was 15 and returned to it in 1966, when the Beatles were preparing to record Sgt Pepper. His dad Jim had turned 64 that summer, and in the song the young Beatle makes the imaginative leap into the mind and body of a much older man.

Poets from a host of different countries have been asked to write A Poem to the Future, considering how they might envisage themselves and/or the world when they reach the age of 64.

Each of the tracks being celebrated in Sgt Pepper at 50 has a theme – from dreams and vision (Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds) to teenage and youth (She’s Leaving Home). Our poets have been encouraged to take one of those themes as a focus for their work.

Of course, no poetry project celebrating this unique musical anniversary would be complete without a contribution from our own renowned Liverpool Poet, Roger McGough, who has also written a poem giving his response to being 64.

For more info, please visit https://www.sgtpepperat50.com/about/