Edwin Brock was a British poet. Brock wrote two of the best-known poems of the last century, Five Ways to Kill a Man and Song of the Battery Hen. 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."

Sir Kingsley William Amis CBE, was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than twenty novels, three collections of poetry, short stories, radio and television scripts, and books of social and literary criticism. He fathered the English novelist Martin Amis. Kingsley Amis was born in Clapham, Wandsworth, County of London (now South London), England, the son of William Robert Amis, a mustard manufacturer's clerk. He began his education at the City of London School, and went up to St. John's College, Oxford April 1941 to read English; it was there that he met Philip Larkin, with whom he formed the most important friendship of his life. After only a year, he was called up for Army service in July 1942. After serving as a lieutenant in the Royal Corps of Signals in the Second World War, Amis returned to Oxford in October 1945 to complete his degree. Although he worked hard and got a first in English in 1947, he had by then decided to devote much of his time to writing. Pen names: Robert Markham & William Tanner

Reginald John Clemo (Jack Clemo) was a poet and writer, strongly associated both with his native Cornwall and his Christian belief. His work is visionary and inspired by the Cornish landscape. He had no formal schooling after age 13, became deaf around age 20, and blind in 1955, about 19 years later. His early work was published in the local press; he first received recognition in connection with the Festival of Britain. The massive china clay mines and works around which he grew up feature strongly in his work.