Collected Poems

by R.N. Currey

R.N. Currey's poetry records what happens to men in war and life.

This is a collection of poems by the poet and writer R.N. Currey. Born in Mafeking in 1907, R.N. Currey was a soldier, poet and at one time a school teacher in Colchester.

R.N. Currey is a poet who has pleased poets: T.S.Eliot told him in 1945 that his collection This Other Planet was 'the best war poetry I have seen in these last six years'; Dylan Thomas was so taken with the wit of 'Pelican, St James's Park' that he recited it from memory on a traffic island in front of the BBC just after he had met R.N. Currey for the first time; Roy Campbell, Guy Butler and Jack Cope claimed his work for South Africa.

320 pages, Hardcover

Published February 15, 2001

Reviews

[Michael Farrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

includes some very good prose poems

[Judith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe I shouldn’t have given this book 5 stars, as I haven’t read all of it, never mind. I came across R.N. Currey’s name quite by chance when someone said he was very highly rated by TS Eliot - and that he’s one of the Second World War poets. Currey’s World War 2 poems are a very different take on any other war poetry I’ve come across before & I think they should be much better known than they are. He is, tho’, also capable of much lighter poems. In other words I’ve really enjoyed reading his poetry & will definitely be keeping this book - which is beautiful. The quality of the paper and the notes alongside, which are informative rather than intrusive. In other words, a volume to be treasured.