Edwin Brock

Edwin Brock (1927-1997). Courtesy Enitharmon Press.

Edwin Brock (19 October 1927 - 7 September 1997) was an English poet. Brock wrote 2 of the best-known poems of the 20th century, "Five Ways to Kill a Man" and "Song of the Battery Hen".

Life

Youth

Brock was born in Dulwich, London, in 1927. He grew up in a turbulent working-class family with no literary aspirations. He won a scholarship to a local grammar school but his formal education ended after he gained his School Certificate. Brock's interest in poetry was inspired by a paperback anthology of modern verse which he picked up idly as a bored 18-year old, waiting to be de-mobbed from the Royal Navy at the end of the Second World War. This chance encounter in Hong Kong was to prove revelatory and from then on Brock, completely self-taught, began to write his own poems.

Career

Gradually Brock began to be published, firstly in the smaller magazines and eventually in the Times Literary Supplement. During this period, Brock served as a police officer in the Metropolitan force, the unusual combination of policeman and poet giving rise to a brief period of fame when a tabloid journalist published an interview with Brock under the banner headline: "THE THINGS HE THINKS UP AS HE POUNDS THE PECKHAM BEAT". Brock was embarrassed by the sudden attention, but he continued to pursue his writing with serious intent. His efforts bore fruit when his debut collection was accepted by the small but prestigious Scorpion Press in 1959. Its title, An Attempt at Exorcism, touches on the essentially personal nature of Brock's work, the frankness of which connects him to the Confessional Movement which at that time was in the ascendancy in the United States. Indeed, Brock is among the few British poets of this period to be known in America, with New Directions publishing several of his collections.

Brock left the police to become an advertising copywriter, a profession which he claimed to despise, but in which he became very successful creating the famous strapline for the UK Financial Times newspaper of 'No FT. No comment'. Brock resented the way work distracted him from his real creative life in poetry, but he continued to write alongside his career, publishing over a dozen collections and becoming increasingly prolific toward the end of his life. He was also editor of the poetry magazine, Ambit, for almost four decades. In 1966 his status was recognised by his inclusion in the influential Penguin Modern Poets series together with Geoffrey Hill and Stevie Smith.

Private life

In 1949 Brock married Patricia Weller, with whom he had a son and daughter. The marriage proved to be unhappy and was dissolved in 1964. The traumatic experience of marital conflict and divorce permeated his poetry at the time, for instance in the bitter and powerful "An Arrangement for Seeing Children".

Brock died in 1997 following a contented retirement alongside his second wife, Elizabeth Skilton, with whom he had shared 30 happy years.

Writing

Brock authored over a dozen poetry collections, a novel and an autobiography. He wrote 2 of the best-known poems of the last century, 'Five Ways to Kill a Man' and 'Song of the Battery Hen', but his work deserves wider recognition beyond these anthology favorites.

Brock's poems amply demonstrate the virtues of his "intensely felt, supple, direct and memorable work." Five Ways to Kill a Man is chilling in its deliberately emotionless tone as it uses the language of a practical manual to explore humanity's cruelty. Progress is reduced to the way in which mankind has "improved" its methods of killing. Inspired by a performance of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem and written quickly, the poem has an air of authority which Brock's reading emphasises. Song of the Battery Hen is similarly suited to being spoken aloud. Though written as a dramatic monologue, in his introduction Brock makes it clear the poem has autobiographical resonance. As such it is a good example of his belief that "most activity is an attempt to define oneself in one way or another: for me poetry, and only poetry, has provided this self-defining act.".

Publications

Poetry

• An Attempt at Exorcism: Poems. Northwood, Middlesex, UK: Scorpion Press, 1959.
• A Family Affair: Two sonnet sequences. Northwood, Middlesex, UK: Scorpion Press, 1960.
• With Love from Judas (with Robin Skelton & Al Alvarez). Lowestoft, Suffolk, UK: Scorpion Press, 1963.
• Fred's Primer: A little girl's guide to the world all around her. London: Macmillan, 1969.
• Penguin Modern Poets 8 (Brock, Geoffrey Hill, Stevie Smith). Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1970.
• A Cold Day at the Zoo. London: Rapp & Whiting, 1970.
• Invisibility is the Art of Survival. New York: New Directions, 1972.
• The Portraits and the Poses. London: Secker & Warburg, 1973; New York: New Directions, 1973.
• ParoxISMS; a guide to the ISMS. New York: New Directions, 1974.
• I Never Saw it Lit. Santa Barbara, CA: Capra Press, 1974.
• The Blocked Heart. New York: New Directions, 1976.
• Song of the Battery Hen: Selected poems, 1959-1975. London: Secker & Warburg, 1977.
• To the Muse. London: Turret Books, 1979.
• Birth Ward. Buffalo, NY: State University Press, 1980.
• Five Ways to Kill a Man: New and selected poems. Petersfield, UK: Enitharmon Press, 1990.
• And Another Thing: Poems, 1991-1997. London: Enitharmon Press, 1997.

Fiction

• The Little White God (novel). London: Hutchinson, 1962.

Non-fiction

• Here, Now, Always (autobiography). New York: New Directions Publishing, 1977.

Five Ways To Kill A Man Edwin Brock

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of British poets

External links

Poems

• "Five Ways to Kill a Man"

Audio / video

• Edwin Brock (1927-1997) at The Poetry Archive

Books

• Edwin Brock at Amazon.com

About

• Edwin Brock at Enitharmon Press
• Obituary: Edwin Brock in The Independent.