Richard Kell, born in 1927 in Youghal, County Cork, was the second of four children. Their father (Protestant Northern Irish) was George, a Methodist clergyman who later became a missionary. Their mother (Protestant Southern Irish) was Irene, née Musgrave. After five early years in India, Kell was educated mainly in Belfast and Dublin. With a degree in English and French literature from Trinity College Dublin, he worked in England as a schoolteacher, then as a librarian, and eventually as a teacher in further and higher education. In 1983, he took early retirement from a 13-year post as a senior lecturer in English and American literature at Newcastle upon Tyne Polytechnic, now the University of Northumbria. He and Muriel Nairn, a Dubliner, had been married in 1953. They had two sons, Colin and Timothy, and two daughters, Carolyn and Shelagh. Muriel died in 1975 and Colin 20 years later.

Meanwhile, Kell had been writing verse, prose and music. Some of his compositions were performed by soloists, small groups and orchestras (including Northern Sinfonia, the Liverpool Philharmonic and the BBC Concert Orchestra), but he gave up composing in 1995. He reviewed poetry in the 1960s for the Guardian and the Critical Survey, and more recently for Iron. Over the years, many of his poems and a few critical essays appeared in magazines and/or anthologies. He has given readings in numerous places, including Newcastle (Morden Tower) and Durham (Colpitts Poetry). He was a co-editor of Other Poetry, series II, from 1995 to 2003. Though he retired from this post voluntarily at the age of 75, he did so reluctantly (the magazine being a good one with an excellent editorial spirit) as well as gratefully. He likes being in Newcastle but sometimes thinks - perhaps too romantically, he says - of ending his days in Ireland.

Poetry collections: Control Tower (London, Chatto & Windus, 1962), Differences (Chatto & Windus, 1969), Humours (Sunderland, Ceolfrith Press, 1978), The Broken Circle (Ceolfrith Press, 1981), In Praise of Warmth (Dublin, Dedalus Press, 1987), Rock and Water (Dedalus Press, 1993), Collected Poems (Belfast, Lagan Press, 2001), Under the Rainbow (Lagan Press, 2003), Letters to Enid (Shoestring Press, 2004).
Works in typescript: Companionable Journeys (poem of 4000 lines), The Nice Boy (cycle of short stories), The Banyan Book (reflective journal of 650,000 words), The Rowan Book (reflective journal in progress).