Life
1927- ; b. Cork; son of Methodist minister and missionary; lived first
five years in India, ed. in school in Ireland and at TCD; retired from
Snr. Lecturer in English Dept. at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1983 [var. since
1970], and returned to Ireland; composer with pieces performed by several
orchestras; wrote reviews for in Guardian, 1970s; suffered loss
of his wife Muriel by drowning, 1975; Collected Poems (Lagan 2002); another collection, Under the Rainbow (2004). DIW
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Works
Poems [The Fantasy Poets, 35; gen. eds. Bernard Berzoni & Oscar
Mellor] (Oxford: Fantasy Press 1957); [8]pp.; Control Tower (1962); Differences (1969), Humours (Sutherland 1978); Humours (1978), ill. Dick Ward; Heartwood (Newcastle 1978); The
Broken Circle (1981); In Praise of Warmth: New and Selected Poems (Dedalus 1987); In Praise of Warmth: New and Selected Poems (Dublin: Dedalus Press 1987). Miscellaneous, a review of Seamus Heaney, Guardian ( [n.d.] 1972); Rock and Water (1993); Collected Poems,
intro. Fred Johnston (Belfast: Lagan Press 2002), 246pp.; Under the Rainbow (Belfast: Lagan Press 2004), 100pp.
Anthology-contributions incl. Robin Skelton, ed., Six Irish Poets (London: OUP 1962); Katie Donovan, A. N. Jeffares & Brendan Kennelly, eds., Ireland’s Women (Dublin: G&M 1994); and John F. Deane, ed.,] Dedalus Irish Poets (1992), pp.71-78 [with biographical notice].
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Commentary
Rory Brennan, review of Richard Kell, Collected Poems, intro.
Fred Johnston (Lagan Press), in Books Ireland (Summer 2002). Brennan
writes, ‘disillusion is one of the key tones [sic] in Kell’s
oeuvre. But is no facile or repetitive disillusion … Rather it is
an intelligent, almost researched, anticipated, stoic disillusoin with
whih Kell faces the pleastures and punishments of love, inexorable physical
decline, the drifting seasons, the death of those deeply loved. (p.157.)
John Greening, short notice of Collected Poems, 1962-1993 (Lagan Press [2002]): cites fine long poem, “The Dancers”, concerning the effects of preachers in Cornwall, and marking a key-change in the collection [quotes]: ‘shaping some argument about / my craft, my father’s mission, and the Word’; also “Heartwood”, moving 15-part poem in memory of his wife Muriel, drowned in 1975; notes ‘shocking directness’ and ‘no-nonsense tone’; ‘tendency towards prosaic in longer poems’; ‘usually taut’; ‘thoughtful balancing of esoteric, ecological and domestic concerns.’ Initially remarks that, though born in Co. Cork, ‘there is not muchof Ireland about his Collected Poems’.
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