Edgar Foxall

Edgar Foxall (1906–1990) was an English poet whose work features in one of the Penguin poetry anthologies, Poetry of the Thirties (1964). Though notable for caustic political commentary and acute social observation, the natural world is a strong recurrent theme throughout his work.

Born near Ellesmere Port in Cheshire, Foxall left school at fourteen, working in a range of jobs (clerk, shop foreman, and part-time sports journalist) before training as a school teacher after World War II. Taking an active interest in local politics (he was a fervent supporter of the early Labour Party (UK)), Foxall was a prolific contributor to literary journals, magazines and the local and national press. In 1968, together with his wife Nancy, he moved to the North Wales resort town of Llandudno.

Foxall received encouragement through correspondence with both T. S. Eliot and John Masefield. He won critical acclaim from Leonard Clark, J. C. Squire and Cyril Connolly.

• Proems (1938)
• Water Rat Sonata (1940)
• Poems (1947)
• Decade (1957)
• The Limitations of Moonlight (1973)
• Ultimate Harvest (1992)

One of Foxall's most famous works, published in 1933:

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There will be no festivities when We lay down these tools For we are the massed grooves Of grease smooth systems. The Communist measures the future, The Elect fear the past But we are those ribless polyps That nature insures Against thought by routines, Against triumph by tolerance Against life by the sense of Mechanical footbeats Against poverty by Cant, Extinction by syphilis And the glory of the crucifixion By the price of timber.