Martin Bell (poet)

Martin Bell (1918–1978) was a British poet.

Bell was strongly influenced by T. S. Eliot and Jules Laforgue. He used complex ironies and was skilled at deflating by rhetorical devices. However, he was far from being a right-wing satirist.

His style came to maturity in the late 1950s. This relatively late development shows in the depth of experience manifest in his best poems.

His best-known poems are The Enormous Comics and Letter to a Friend.