Randall Swingler

Randall Swingler was an English poet, a novelist, a playwright, a critic, and an editor. He began his career as an accomplished flautist, playing with London orchestras before becoming a librettist. In 1934, he joined the Communist Party of Great Britain and frequently published verse influenced by William Blake.

In World War II, Swingler served as private soldier and was awarded the Military Medal for bravery in 1945. Since his death in 1967, he has garnered acclaim as a central figure in communist English poetry. Andy Croft writes that Swingler was “the last of the Georgian poets” and that his poetry “had a moral and political urgency.”