Martin Bell (poet)

Martin Bell (1918–1978) was an English poet born in Hampshire. He attended the University of Southampton, then called University College, Southampton, where he read for an external London Honours degree in English, followed in 1939 by a diploma in Education. He served from 1939 to 1946 with the Royal Engineers in Lebanon, Syria and Italy.

From the mid-1950s, Bell became a member of The Group in London, having been introduced by Peter Redgrove following a chance meeting outside Chiswick Library. He regularly attended The Group's meetings until leaving for Leeds in 1967, and was influential in its workings. He was later described by Philip Hobsbaum as "much older than the rest of us, and much the best linguist;" and by Peter Porter as "the father and tone-setter of Group discussions." During this time, Bell held various teaching posts through London County Council; and worked as an opera critic for The Queen magazine, a post obtained through his friend Anthony Burgess. He was awarded the first Arts Council Poetry Bursary in 1964, enabling him to work part-time and allowing more time for writing.

Bell succeeded David Wright to the Gregory Fellowship in Poetry at the University of Leeds, having been recommended for the position by Professor Norman Jeffares. At age 49, he was the oldest poet to hold the Fellowship. The outbreak of war in 1939 and Bell's personal circumstances had interrupted his career and his development as a poet; Peter Porter pinpoints his poetic "flowering" as having come to Bell in early middle age, notably between 1955 and 1965. Bell's poems appeared in journals, and a selection of his poetry was included in the Penguin Modern Poets series, alongside poems by George Barker and Charles Causley in 1962. However, Collected Poems, 1937-1966, was the first and only poetry collection to be published during his lifetime.

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