Roger Guedalla

Kenneth Cox was one of the most modest and retiring of men yet a brilliant and original critic. He wrote about Lorine Niedecker, Basil Bunting, George Oppen and many other contemporary poets with a very rare insight and total originality. His close reading of the text was illuminated by extraordinary intelligence, sensitivity and wide reading. Like them, and many other poets, he was not as well-known or as widely read as he deserved to be. Fortunately, a collection of his essays, derived from many poetry magazines, was published in book form a few years ago. Everything he wrote is worth reading and rereading, such was the immense care he took. It was a genuine honour and pleasure to know him and a cause of great sadness to learn of his death.