Edgell Rickword John Edgell Rickword , MC ( 22 October 1898 – 15 March 1982 ) was an English poet , critic , journalist and literary editor . He became one of the leading communist intellectuals active in the 1930s . Early life . He was born in Colchester , Essex . He served as an officer in the British Army in World War I , having joined the Artists ' Rifles in 1916 , being awarded a Military Cross . On 4 January 1919 , Rickword developed an illness that was diagnosed as a " general vascular invasion which had resulted in general septicaemia " . His left eye was so badly infected that they thought it necessary to remove it to prevent the infection from spreading to the other eye . He was a published war poet , and collected his early verse in " Behind the Eyes " ( 1921 ) . " Artists Rifles " , an audiobook published in 2004 , includes two poems read by Rickword : " Winter Warfare " and " The Soldier Addresses His Body " . Both were recorded during the 1970s . Other war poets heard on the CD include Siegfried Sassoon , Edmund Blunden , Robert Graves , David Jones and Lawrence Binyon . Rickword can also be heard on " Memorial Tablet " , an audiobook of readings by Sassoon issued in 2003 . He went up to the University of Oxford in 1919 , staying only four terms reading French literature , and leaving when he married . Literary friends from this period included mainly other ex - soldiers : Anthony Bertram , Edmund Blunden , Vivian de Sola Pinto , A . E . Coppard , Louis Golding , Robert Graves , L . P . Hartley , and Alan Porter . His work appeared in the " Oxford Poetry " 1921 anthology , with Blunden , Golding , Porter , Graves , Richard Hughes , and Frank Prewett . Critic . He then took up literary work in London . He reviewed for the " Times Literary Supplement " , which led to his celebrated review of T . S . Eliot ' s " The Waste Land " . J . C . Squire published him in the " London Mercury " , and Desmond MacCarthy as literary editor of the " New Statesman " gave him work . He started the " Calendar of Modern Letters " literary review , now highly regarded , in March 1925 . It lasted until July 1927 , assisted by Douglas Garman and then Bertram Higgins , and contributions from his cousin C . H . Rickword . The " Scrutinies " books of collected pieces from it were a " succes d ' estime " ; the purpose of the publication was a mass killing of the sacred cows of Edwardian literature ( G . K . Chesterton , John Galsworthy , John Masefield , George Bernard Shaw , H . G . Wells ) . Its undoubted influence as a precursor of later criticism was very marked in the early days of " Scrutiny " , the magazine founded a few years later by F . R . Leavis and Q . D . Leavis . Rickword also wrote for that publication . Communist . He joined the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1934 , and became increasingly active in political work during the period of the Spanish Civil War ; while still writing poetry . He was friendly with Randall Swingler , the ' official ' poetry voice of the CPGB , and with Jack Lindsay , his only real rival as a theoretician . He was closely connected with the leading cultural figures on the hard Left , such as Mulk Raj Anand , Ralph Fox , Julius Lipton , A . L . Morton , Sylvia Townsend Warner and Alick West . When Lawrence & Wishart was created as the official CPGB publishing house , in 1936 , Rickword became a director . It was through Rickword that Lawrence & Wishart published Nancy Cunard ' s " Negro : An Anthology " , though at her own expense . At that same period he was a co - founder of the " Left Review " , which he edited . His associates included James Boswell , who was the art editor ; they had met around 1929 . " Left Review " existed from 1934 to 1938 , was set up by Rickword and Douglas Garman , had as writers both CPGB members and notable figures outside the party , and founded Marxist criticism in the UK . Later he became Editor of " Our Time " , the Communist review , from 1944 to 1947 , working with Arnold Rattenbury and David Holbrook . Rickword had an upbeat view at the time on the possibilities of popular culture and radical politics , and the circulation rose as he broadened the publication ' s scope from popular political poetry . The post - war clique around " Our Time " , the Salisbury Group ( named for a pub ) , included Christopher Hill , Charles Hobday , Holbrook , Mervyn Jones , Lindsay , Rattenbury , Montagu Slater , Swingler , E . P . Thompson ; and Doris Lessing joined it .