Day Lewis, Cecil

Irish poet, publisher and professor, and a British citizen from 1948. Cecil Day Lewis is one of the most prominent names in English-language poetry from the mid-twentieth century. Writing under the pseudonym of Nicholas Blake, he was also a respected and rather popular crime writer. He was a member of many different academic societies in Great Britain and the USA, and a professor of poetry at two different universities. In 1968, he succeeded John Masefield as Poet Laureate of Britain.