Editing Adrian Mitchell (section)

==Recognition and awards==
In the late 1960s, British poets at a conference voted for Adrian Mitchell as the next [[Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom|poet laureate]]. Around 30 years later, he was nominated, semi-seriously, as Britain's "Shadow Poet Laureate" by [[Red Pepper (magazine)|''Red Pepper'' magazine]].<ref>[[Red Pepper (magazine)|''Red Pepper'' magazine]], 2002.</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20230624160739/https://www.redpepper.org.uk/shadow-on-the-sun/ "Shadow on the sun"], ''Red Pepper'', March 2009.</ref> 

In a [[National Poetry Day]] poll in 2005, Mitchell's poem "Human Beings" was voted the one most people would like to see launched into space.<ref name="bbcobit">{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7794815.stm |title=Poet Adrian Mitchell dies at 76 |access-date=5 January 2009 |work=[[BBC Online]] |date=21 December 2008| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090103200523/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7794815.stm| archive-date= 3 January 2009 | url-status= live}}</ref>
===Awards===
Mitchell won several awards, including:
* 1961: [[Eric Gregory Award]]{{cn|date=January 2025}}
* 1966: [[PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize|PEN Translation Prize]]{{cn|date=January 2025}}
* 1971: [[Tokyo Festival Television Film Award]]{{cn|date=January 2025}}
* 2005: [[CLPE Poetry Award]] (shortlist) for ''Daft as a Doughnut''{{cn|date=January 2025}}

===Appraisal and tributes===
Fellow writers could be effusive in their tributes. [[John Berger]] said: "Against the present British state he opposes a kind of revolutionary [[populism]], [[bawdiness]], [[wit]] and the tenderness sometimes to be found between animals." [[Angela Carter]] once wrote that Mitchell was "a joyous, acrid and demotic tumbling lyricist [[Pied Piper of Hamelin|Pied Piper]], determinedly singing us away from catastrophe." [[Ted Hughes]] stated: "In the world of verse for children, nobody has produced more surprising verse or more genuinely inspired fun than Adrian Mitchell."<ref name="writers" />

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 [[Iraq War|invasion of Iraq]] was electrifying. Of course, he couldn't stop that war, but he performed as if he could."<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/dec/24/adrian-mitchell-poetry |title=Obituary Letter: Adrian Mitchell |access-date=5 January 2009 |last=Woolf |first=Jan |date=24 December 2003 |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] | location=London}}</ref>

"Adrian", said fellow poet [[Michael Rosen]], "was a socialist and a [[pacifist]] who believed, like William Blake, that everything human was ''[[holy]]''. That's to say he celebrated a love of life with the same fervour that he attacked those who crushed life. He did this through his poetry, his plays, his song lyrics and his own performances. Through this huge body of work, he was able to raise the spirits of his audiences, in turn exciting, inspiring, saddening and enthusing them.... He has sung, chanted, whispered and shouted his poems in every kind of place imaginable, urging us to love our lives, love our minds and bodies and to fight against [[tyranny]], [[oppression]] and exploitation."<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=16758 |title=Adrian Mitchell 1932–2008 |access-date=5 January 2009 |last=Rosen |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Rosen |date=21 December 2003 |newspaper=[[Socialist Worker]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090129232050/http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=16758 |archive-date=29 January 2009 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The critic [[Kenneth Tynan]] called him "the British [[Vladimir Mayakovsky|Mayakovsky]]".<ref name="writers">{{Cite web|url=http://www.adrianmitchell.co.uk/#/on-adrian-mitchell/4538917125 |title=Words for Adrian... |access-date=26 December 2014 |publisher=Adrian Mitchell's website |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141226103049/http://www.adrianmitchell.co.uk/ |archive-date=26 December 2014 }}<!-- --></ref>

''[[The Times]]'' said that Mitchell's had been a "forthright voice often laced with tenderness". His poems on such topics as [[nuclear war]], [[Vietnam War|Vietnam]], prisons and racism had become "part of the folklore of the Left. His work was often read and sung at [[Demonstration (people)|demonstrations and rallies]]".<ref>{{cite news |url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article5381267.ece |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110616142632/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article5381267.ece |url-status=dead |archive-date=16 June 2011 |title=Adrian Mitchell, 'Shadow Poet Laureate', dies aged 76 |access-date=5 January 2009 |newspaper=[[The Times]] |date=22 December 2008 |author=Kaya Burgess | location=London|author-link=Kaya Burgess }}</ref>