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Question:

Anybody got any info on stephen spenders poem air raid across the bay at plymouth?

Could anyone tell me anything about the poem? Just stuff like when it was written and what book it's in
Thanks


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

It was published in Ruins and Visions (Faber and Faber, London 1942) so it must have been written between then and the first air raid on Plymouth which was on Saturday, July 6th, 1940. Possibly during the period of heavy bombing known as the 'Plymouth Blitz' which was in March and April 1941.

It can be found in several of Spender's collected poems books and was anthologised in Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness by Carolyn Forche

There is an audio recording of Spender reciting the poem on The Still Centre (Faber, 1997)

The poem has been set as a choral work by the composer Antony le Fleming.