Page "Edwin Brock" Paragraph 2

Gradually Brock started to be published, firstly in the smaller magazines and eventually in the Times Literary Supplement.

During this period, Brock served as a police officer in the Metropolitan force, the unusual combination of policeman and poet giving rise to a brief period of fame when a tabloid journalist published an interview with Brock under the banner headline: " THE THINGS HE THINKS UP AS HE POUNDS THE PECKHAM BEAT ".

Brock was embarrassed by the sudden attention, but he continued to pursue his writing with serious intent.

His efforts bore fruit when his first collection was accepted by the small but prestigious Scorpion Press in 1959.

Its title, An Attempt at Exorcism, touches on the essentially personal nature of Brock's work, the frankness of which connects him to the Confessional Movement which at that time was in the ascendancy in the United States.

Indeed, Brock is one of the few British poets of this period to be known in America, with New Directions publishing several of his collections.