Harold W. Massingham (25 October 1932 in Mexborough – 13 March 2011) was an English poet.
Life He was the son of H. W. Massingham (a collier from Mexborough). He attended the same Mexborough Grammar School as the Yorkshire poet and Poet Laureate Ted Hughes but in a class two years below. He taught at the University of Manchester; his students included Steven Waling, and Trevor Griffiths.Mike Poole & John Wyver, Powerplays: Trevor Griffiths in Television, 1984, London: BFI Publishing, p. 12
Harold Massingham lived in Mexborough through his childhood, and then Manchester from his university days, until moving with his wife Pat to Spain in the 1990s. He published three volumes of poetry in 1965, 1972 and 1992.Ian McMillan, Vernon Scannell, Yorkshire Post, 23 November 2007
His work was published in The New Yorker, and Alhambra Poetry Calendar.
Under the pseudonym ‘Mass’ he set crosswords for national newspapers and magazines for more than 30 years.Jonathan Crowther (2006) A-Z of Crosswords, London: Collins , He also compiled chess puzzles.
Awards 1968 Cholmondeley Awards for Poets
Work
Poetry broadsheets Doomsday The Magician, Manchester: Phoenix Pamphlet Poets Press, 1969 Seafarer Wanderer The Magician's Attic
Poetry books Chris Jones, Strange likeness: the use of Old English in twentieth-century poetry, Oxford University Press, 2006 Frost Gods, Macmillan, 1972 Sonatas & Dreams, Littlewood Arc, 1992 Selected Poems, Calder Valley Poetry, 2021
Anthology
References
External links Harold Massingham Obituary, Yorkshire Post, 19 March 2011 Paul Britton, Farewell to ‘Mass’: Crossword king Harold Massingham dies, aged 78, Manchester Evening News, 23 March 2011