was also editor of the poetry magazine, Ambit, for almost four decades. In 1966 his status was recognised by his inclusion in the influential Penguin Modern Poets series together with Geoffrey Hill and Stevie Smith. Personal life Brock married Patricia Weller (Nellie V. Weller, born 1930, died 2020) in 1949, with whom he had a son and daughter. The marriage proved to be an unhappy one and was dissolved in 1964. The traumatic experience of marital conflict and divorce permeated his poetry at the time, for instance in the bitter and powerful An Arrangement for Seeing Children. In 1964, Brock married Elizabeth Skilton to whom he remained married for 33 years until his death. Brock died on 7 September 1997 in Norfolk, England. . Titles Brocapps listed ten volumes of poetry collections, a novel and an autobiography. Brock wrote two of the best-known poems of the last century, Five Ways to Kill a Man and Song of the Battery Hen, but his work deserves wider recognition beyond these anthology favourites. 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.". Brock's works include: An Attempt at Exorcism (poetry collection, 1959) The Little White God (novel, 1962) "A Cold Day At The Zoo" (1970) "Invisibility Is The Art Of Survival" (1972) "I Never Saw It Lit" (chapbook, 1974) "Paroxisms" (1974) "The Blocked Heart" (1976) Here, Now, Always (autobiography, 1977) "Song of the Battery Hen: Selected Poems" (1977) "The River & The Train" (1979) "Five Ways To Kill A Man: New and Selected Poems" (1990) "And Another Thing" (1999) References External links Obituary: Edwin Brock Accessed 2009-12-27 Edwin