Editing Robert Conquest (section)

===Poems===
In addition to his scholarly work, Conquest was a well-regarded poet<ref>David Yezzi, ''Yale Review'', Volume 98, Issue 2 (April 2010), p. 183 ff.<!-- ISSN needed --></ref> whose poems have been published in various periodicals from 1937. In 1945 he was awarded the PEN Brazil Prize for his war poem "For the Death of a Poet"&nbsp;– about an army friend, the poet Drummond Allison, killed in Italy – and, in 1951, he received a Festival of Britain verse prize.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://waywiser-press.com/conquest.html|title=Robert Conquest, ''Penultimata'': Note on Robert Conquest|publisher=waywiser-press.com|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140115171724/http://waywiser-press.com/conquest.html|archivedate=15 January 2014}}</ref> During his lifetime, he had seven volumes of poetry<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/august/conquest-historian-poet-081610.html|title=Stanford legend Robert Conquest: new books at 93 for the historian and poet|work=Stanford Report|date=16 August 2010|accessdate=4 August 2015|first=Cynthia|last=Haven}}</ref> and one of literary criticism<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ushmm.org/confront-genocide/speakers-and-events/biography/robert-conquest|title=Robert Conquest|publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum|accessdate=4 August 2015}}</ref> published.

Conquest was a major figure in a prominent British literary circle known as [[The Movement (literature)|"The Movement"]] which also included [[Philip Larkin]] and [[Kingsley Amis]]. Movement poets, many of whom bristled at being so labeled, rejected the experiments of earlier practitioners such as [[Ezra Pound]].<ref name="WSJ 4" />

He edited, in 1956 and 1962, the influential ''New Lines'' anthologies, introducing works by them, as well as [[Thom Gunn]], [[Dennis Enright]], and others, to a wider public.<ref>Zachary Leader, ed., ''The Movement Reconsidered'', Oxford University Press, 2009.</ref> He spent 1959–60 as visiting poet at the [[University of Buffalo]]. Several of his poems were published in ''The New Oxford Book of Light Verse'' (1978; compiled by Amis), under the pseudonyms "Stuart Howard-Jones", "Victor Gray" and "Ted Pauker".{{citation needed|reason=old source not suitable for factual claims|date=March 2020}}

It emerged from the pages of poet [[Philip Larkin]]'s [[Selected Letters of Philip Larkin, 1940–1985|published letters]] that Conquest and Larkin shared an enthusiasm for pornography in the 1950s.<ref name=Telegraphobit/> When Larkin was in Hull, Conquest sent him judicious selections of the latest pornography, and, when he came down to London, Conquest took him on shopping trips to the Soho porn shops.<ref name="Homberger"/> On one occasion Conquest, in 1957, wrote a letter to Larkin purporting to come from the Vice Squad which had found the poet's name on a pornographic publisher's list. Larkin panicked and went to see his solicitor, convinced that he was going to lose his job as librarian at Hull University, before Conquest owned up.<ref name=Telegraphobit/> The true story of the joke became in 2008, ''[[Mr Larkin's Awkward Day]]'', a comedy radio play by Chris Harrald.<ref>{{cite web |author=BBC Radio 4 Publicity |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/proginfo/radio/wk18/tue.shtml |title=Mr Larkin's Awkward Day |publisher=[[BBC Radio 4]] | date=29 April 2008}}</ref>

Soon after his expulsion from the Soviet Union, [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]] met with Conquest, asking him to translate a 'little' poem of his into English verse. This was "[[Prussian Nights]]" – nearly two thousand lines in ballad metre – published in 1977.<ref>Robert Conquest, 'Solzhenitsyn, A Genius with a Blindspot', ''Sunday Times'', 10 August 2008; p. A15</ref>

A new ''Collected Poems'', edited by Elizabeth Conquest, was published in March 2020 by the Waywiser Press.<ref>[https://waywiser-press.com/product/collected-poems/ ''Collected Poems'', Robert Conquest]</ref>