Former Beatle turns poet

McCartney is publishing his poetry as a tribute to his late wife Linda

LIVERPOOL, England -- Sir Paul McCartney has given a public reading of his poetry at an intimate theatre near his childhood home.

McCartney read selections from 'Blackbird Singing' an anthology of 48 poems and song lyrics covering his time with the Beatles and his solo career.

For his debut reading he turned down offers from the Royal National Theatre in London, the Oxford Union and Los Angeles Festival of Books preferring to launch the book in his home town.

McCartney's press officer Geoff Baker quoted McCartney as saying "If I'm going to do this, I want to do it in Liverpool first."

As he took the stage McCartney, who has been performing for four decades since the Beatles first played the Cavern club, joked "This is my first ever poetry reading, and I am not in the least bit nervous of course."

The poems span McCartney's life, including early memories of Liverpool, the 1980 murder of John Lennon and the loss of his wife Linda to breast cancer in 1998.

He also recited the lyrics to the Beatles 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer,' and ended the reading with an audience-participation rendition of 'Why Don't We Do It in the Road?'

He started writing poetry after the 1993 death of his best friend from childhood Ivan Vaughan, who introduced him to his former song writing partner John Lennon.

"Ivan was my best friend from my school days and when he died that started me off writing poetry. Instead of writing a song I felt that this was the time to write a poem. It felt appropriate," he said.

McCartney said some of the poems in the book may yet turn out to be songs.

"One or two of them are lyrics that nobody knows are songs because I haven't recorded them yet," he said.

In one poem, McCartney wrote: "Sadness isn't sadness, it's happiness in a black jacket. Death isn't death, it's life that jumped off a tall cliff. Tears are not tears, they're balls of laughter dipped in salt."

The former Beatle said he was not worried about the critics response to his poems.

"The critics are always mixed with me," he said. "I always say they sharpen their pencils when they see me coming. But I don't care, you know, they criticised 'Sergeant Pepper' and look what happened to that."

'Blackbird Singing' is scheduled for release in the United States on April the 24th and follows the publication last year of a collection of McCartney's paintings.

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