Treece, Henry

(1911-1966)

   Born at Wednesbury, Staffordshire, he was educated at Birmingham University before becoming a schoolteacher. He served as an intelligence officer in Bomber Command during World War II, and after the war he became a broadcaster, writer of poetry, drama, short stories, books for children and historical novels. Together with J.F. Hendry (see entry) he was a founder of the New Apocalypse movement - a reaction against the politically oriented, machine-age literature and realist poetry of the 1930s. He edited Issues of Transformation, and a New Romantic Antholog y with Stefan Schimanski (1949), Issues of Kingdom Come (the magazine of war-time Oxford) with Schimanski and Alan Rook, and War-Time Harvest, How I See Apocalypse (1946). He died at Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire.

   Some of his other publications: 38 Poems, 1940. Air Force Poetry, 1944 (edited by J. Pudney [see entry]). The Black Seasons, 1945. The Haunted Garden, 1947. Selected Poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne, 1948 (editor). The Exiles, 1952. Collected Poems, 1963.

   Some of his poems: "Birdwatcher," "In the Third Year of War," "Lincolnshire Bomber Station," "Prayer in Time of War," "The Crimson Cherry Tree," "The Dyke-Builder."

   Sources: A Little Treasury of British Poetry. Oscar Williams, ed. Scribner's, 1951. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The New British Poets: An Anthology. Kenneth Rexroth, ed. New Directions, 1949. The Oxford Book of Welsh Verse in English. Gwyn Jones, ed. Oxford University Press, 1977. The War Poets: An Anthology of the War Poetry of the 20th Century. Oscar Williams, ed. John Day, 1945. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia).