Collected Poems

Perhaps best known for his much anthologized World War II poem, "Naming of Parts", and a number of radio plays and translations from the Italian, Henry Reed published only one volume of verse during his lifetime, "A Map of Verona" in 1946. Jon Stallworthy's introduction traces Reed's life and offers a critical assessment of the published and many unpublished poems, the "Lessons of the War", translations, songs, and early fragments included in this "Collected Poems" that should help establish Reed alongside the other great war poets.

Henry Reed (1914-86), was born in Birmingham and educated at King Edward VI School and Birmingham University, where he studied language and literature and wrote an MA thesis on Hardy. He worked as a teacher and freelance journalist, 1937-41. After a short period in the army he was transferred to the Foreign Office to work in Naval Intelligence, 1942-5. Thereafter Reed made his career in radio as a journalist, broadcaster, and playwright. The BBC's Third Programme was inaugurated in October 1946, and he became a member of the legendary group of writers--including Louis MacNeice, Dylan Thomas, Terence Tiller, P. H. Newby, Patric Dickinson, W. R. Rodgers, and Rayner Heppenstall--who were attached to the network during its golden period. His most memorable set of productions was the Hilda Tablet series in the 1950s. Later he was a visiting professor and associate professor of English at the University of Washington, Seattle. He was called up to the Army in 1941, spending most of the war as a Japanese translator. Reed also worked for many years on a biography of Hardy, which he never finished. Reed's most famous poem is Naming of Parts, a witty parody of army basic training. Published in A Map of Verona in 1946, it was his only collection to be published within his lifetime. Another anthologised poem is Chard Whitlow, a clever satire of T. S. Eliot's Burnt Norton.

Perhaps best known for his much anthologized World War II poem, "Naming of Parts", and a number of radio plays and translations from the Italian, Henry Reed published only one volume of verse during his lifetime, "A Map of Verona" in 1946. Jon Stallworthy's introduction traces Reed's life and offers a critical assessment of the published and many unpublished poems, the "Lessons of the War", translations, songs, and early fragments included in this "Collected Poems" that should help establish Reed alongside the other great war poets.

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