Ralph Nixon Currey (14 December 1907 – 18 November 2001) was a South African born poet, who wrote in English.

Life

He was born in

Mafeking Mafikeng, officially known as Mahikeng and previously Mafeking (, ), is the capital city of the North West province of South Africa. Close to South Africa's border with Botswana, Mafikeng is northeast of Cape Town and west of Johannesburg. In ...

, South Africa, the son of John Currey (1871–1959) and his wife Edith Vinnicombe (1881–1959). His father was an English Methodist minister who had come out with the British troops at the end of the

Second Anglo-Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the South ...

. He attended Kingswood School, Bath and

Wadham College, Oxford Wadham College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is located in the centre of Oxford, at the intersection of Broad Street and Parks Road. Wadham College was founded in 1610 by Dorothy W ...

. Currey married Stella Martin in 1932. He taught at Colchester Royal Grammar School from 1934 to 1973. Currey was called up in 1941 to the Royal Corps of Signals before transferring to the Royal Artillery where he received his commission. In 1945

T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biogr ...

wrote to him about his work ''This Other Planet'', telling him that he thought it was "the best war poetry in the correct sense of the term that I have seen in these past years". Currey died at home in Colchester, England.

Works

* ''Tiresias'', Oxford University, 1940 * ''Heavy Guns'', New English Weekly, 1942 * ''The Poetry Magazine'' July 1944 * ''This Other Planet'', 1945 * ''Poems from India'' (Bombay, 1945) (London, 1946) * ''Indian Landscape'', Routledge, 1947 * ''Formal Spring'', OUP, 1950 * ''Poets of the 1939-1945 War'', British Council, 1951 (Longmans, 1967) * ''Letters of a Natal sheriff: Thomas Phipson'', 1969 * The Africa We Knew, David Philip, 1973 * ''Vinnicombe's Trek'', 1989 * ''Collected Poems'', James Currey publishers, 2001

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Currey, R.N. 1907 births 2001 deaths People from Mahikeng Royal Corps of Signals soldiers Royal Artillery officers English male poets South African writers 20th-century English poets 20th-century English male writers British Army personnel of World War II