Writers, friends and critics yesterday paid tribute to the Liverpool poet and painter Adrian Henri who helped find a huge new audience for English poetry in the 60s.

Henri, 68, died at home in Liverpool on Wednesday night as the freedom of the city was being conferred on him. He had been too ill to attend the ceremony following complications after a stroke two years ago and was also unable to collect an honorary degree awarded by Liverpool University on Monday.

"He was a shining example of the heart and soul of British poetry at its best," said the poet Carol Ann Duffy, who acknowledged his influence on her work.

Henri was born in Birkenhead but made a significant crossing of the Mersey in 1965 as the Beatles and the Mersey beat were resonating through the country. He studied fine art at King's College, Newcastle, but began writing seriously when he returned to Merseyside and was encouraged by the Liverpool poets Roger McGough and Brian Patten.

Remembering his first public reading, he told an interviewer: "It was a basement club and I was lousy. Pedantic, boring basically. I was looking at all these uninterested people with a drink in their hands and it was a revelation to me.

"Every poem from then on had to have a surface meaning. Maybe you could get to another level by reading it but it had to mean something immediately."

He teamed up with Patten and McGough and their collection The Mersey Sound, published in the Penguin modern poets series, sold more than 1m copies. He later led the poetry and rock band The Liverpool Scene.

His last performance was at a tribute event at Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall last year.