Books

The Poets

	Keith Douglas: The complete poems edited by Desmond Graham (Faber & Faber, 2000) By the time he was killed in Normandy aged only twenty-four, in June 1944, Douglas had achieved a considerable body of work, begun when he was at school at Christ's Hospital, continued at Oxford, and then in the army in England and the Middle East. With an introduction from Ted Hughes, this book comprehensively brings together the poems of one of the most promising poets of World War II. Buy this book from Amazon
	The Letters of Keith Douglas edited by Desmond Graham (Carcanet Press, 2000) Like that of the major poets of World War I, Douglas's poetry was tried and tempered, and then curtailed. His letters tell the story of a man fully engaged by his art, his times and his loves. Buy this book from WHSmith
	Alun Lewis: A life by John Pikoulis (Seren Books/Poetry Wales Press, 1992) Buy this book from WHSmith
	Collected Poems by Alun Lewis, edited by Cary Archard (Seren Books/Poetry Wales Press, 1993) Buy this book from Amazon
	The Voice of War: Poems of the Second World War edited by Victor Selwyn (Penguin Books, 1996) A selection of poems written during World War II, by those in action in the war or the home front, and published to mark the 50th anniversary of VE day. Buy this book from Amazon
	Shadows of War: British women's poetry of the Second World War edited by Anne Powell (Sutton Publishing, 1999) A collection of women's poetry from the phoney war of 1939 to the post war Christmas of 1945, which looks at the impact of the conflict and its consequences. Poems to loved ones killed, missing or abroad are gathered together with the thoughts of service women and nurses. The themes vary from life on the home front, the Dig for Victory campaign and the Women's Land Army and in contrast, poems also record major events of World War II – Dunkirk, the fall of France, the Final Solution, and campaigns on many of the war zones. Buy this book from WHSmith
	Loving Arms: British women writing in the Second World War edited by Karen Schneider (University Press of Kentucky, 1996) Examines the war-related writings of five British women whose works explore the connections among gender, war and story-telling. These women are Stevie Smith, Katharine Burdekin, Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bowen, and Doris Lessing. Buy this book from Amazon
	Personal Landscapes: British poets in Egypt during the Second World War by Jonathan Bolton (Palgrave, 1997) An examination of the poetry of writers living in Egypt during World War II, such as Lawrence Durrell, Bernard Spencer, G S Fraser and Keith Douglas. It also explores the larger realm of the literature of exile, its uniqueness to the 20th century, its connection to war poetry, and its presence in the work of the aforementioned poets. Buy this book from Amazon

General

	Stalingrad by Antony Beevor (Penguin Books, 1999) The battle of Stalingrad became the focus of Hitler and Stalin's determination to win the gruesome, vicious war on the eastern front. The citizens of Stalingrad endured unimaginable hardship but the eventual victory of the Red Army, and the failure of Hitler's Operation Barbarossa was the start of Germany's decline. An extraordinary story of tactical genius, civilian bravery, obsession, carnage and the nature of war itself, acting also as a testament to the vital role of the Soviet war effort. Buy this book from WHSmith
	Myths and Legends of the Second World War by James Hayward (Sutton, October 2003) The Second World War gave rise to a rich crop of legends, many of which persist in the public consciousness even today. Weaving his narrative around a wide range of contemporary documentary sources, the author presents an analysis of the main myths, legends and popular falsehoods of World War II. Buy this book from Amazon
	True Stories of the Second World War by Paul Dowswell (Usborne, November 2003) Recounting the stories of some of the most heroic, devastating and pivotal moments of World War II, this book gives young readers a strong sense of the suffering, but also the bravery involved in the war with an unpatronising and approachable insight into this conflict. Buy this book from Amazon
	The Holocaust by Martin Gilbert (HarperCollins, 1987) A detailed account of the experience of the Jews in Europe during the Second World War, drawing on archive documents and the words of ordinary people who experienced the horrifying events. Buy this book from Amazon
	The Penguin History of the Second World War by Peter Calvocoressi et al (Penguin, 1999) Designed to show a new generation why World War II happened and how it was conducted, this book is considered by many to be the definitive guide. Buy this book from Amazon
	Who's Who in Nazi Germany by Robert Wistrich (Taylor & Francis, 2001) A skilful interweaving of characters and events succeeds in presenting a comprehensive record of Hitler's Reich. Buy this book from WHSmith

Keith Douglas

Alamein to Zem Zem by Keith Douglas (Faber, 1992). Out of print; may be available from libraries or second-hand bookshops.
Re-published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Battle of El Alamein in the north African desert, this book is a prose account, with poems, of the tank battles in North Africa in which he took part. It is now considered a classic account of modern warfare, to rank alongside Edmund Blunden's Undertones of War of World War I.

A Prose Miscellany by Keith Douglas (Carcanet Press, 1985) £12.95.

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Alun Lewis

Alun Lewis: Letters to my wife, edited by Gweno Lewis (Seren Books/Poetry Wales Press, 1992) £14.95.

Alun Lewis: Selected poetry and prose edited by Ian Hamilton (Allen & Unwin, 1966): out of print – look for it in libraries.

Alun Lewis: Collected Stories, edited by Cary Archard (Seren Books/Poetry Wales Press, 1992) £14.95.

Inwards Where All Battle Is: A selection of Alun Lewis's writings from India (Gwasg Gregynog, 1997) £120.00.
Limited edition, illustrated by David Gentleman.

The Sentry: Poems and stories by Alun Lewis (Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, 2003) £1.99

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More poetry and poets of World War II

General

British Writing of the Second World War by Mark Rawlinson (Clarendon Press, 2000) £35.
A detailed critical and historical survey of British literary culture in wartime. It evaluates wartime fictions and memoirs in the context of official and unofficial discourses about military aviation, the Blitz, campaigns in North Africa, war aims, the conscript army and the Home Front, prisoners of war and the Holocaust.

Poets in a War: British writers on the battlefronts and Home Front of World War II by Kenneth A Lohf (Grolier Club, 1995) $20.
Book of an exhibition held at the Grolier Club in New York City. Included manuscript items from Alun Lewis and, particularly, Keith Douglas. The book is available from the Grolier Club publication website.

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Anthologies

Anthology of French Second World War Poetry, edited by Ian Higgins (University of Glasgow French & German Publications, 1994) £9.

In Time of War, edited by Ann Harvey (Macmillan Children's Books, 2000). Out of print; may be available from libraries or second-hand bookshops.
Children's book: a collection of war poetry covering World Wars I and II. Featuring writers who went to war as well as those who stayed behind, such as Rupert Brooke and Vera Brittain, with illustrations provided by the Imperial War Museum.

Poetry of the Second World War: An international anthology, edited by Desmond Graham (Pimlico, 1998). Out of print; may be available from libraries or second-hand bookshops.
This includes the work of unknown poets as well as the likes of Auden, Brecht and Primo Levi. It is arranged to bring out the chronological and cumulative human experience of the war and features, among others, poems on the Holocaust, the Blitz and Hiroshima.

The Poetry of War 1914–1989, edited by Simon Fuller (BBC Consumer Publishing, 1990). Out of print; may be available from libraries or second-hand bookshops.
An anthology that gathers together poetry spanning some of the major conflicts of the 20th century – World Wars I and II, Hiroshima, Vietnam, Ireland and the Falklands – and includes previously unpublished material.

The Terrible Rain: The war poets 1939–1945, edited by Brian Gardner (Methuen, 1977). Out of print; may be available from libraries or second-hand bookshops.
Includes poems by W H Auden, William Plomer, Louis MacNeice, Alun Lewis, Stephen Spender, Dylan Thomas, John Pudney, Keith Douglas and Sidney Keyes.

The Virago Book of Women's War Poetry and Verse, edited by Catherine Reilly (Virago, 1997). Out of print; may be available from libraries or second-hand bookshops.
The voices of Sassoon and Owen on the male agony of the trenches are familiar; less commonly heard is what the wartime years meant for millions of British women - both at home, as evacuees, or as nurses in the trenches abroad. This anthology includes poetry by Phyllis Shand Allfrey, Rose Macaulay, Naomi Mitchinson, Edith Sitwell, Stevie Smith and Sylvia Townsend Warner.

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Individual poets

The Air Show by Peter Scupham (Oxford Poets, 1988) £5.99.
A collection of poems bringing together the themes of childhood and war, from Scupham's memories of World War II, detailing the immediate natural and domestic world that evokes images of the political world and the world at war.

Ezra and Dorothy Pound: Letters in captivity 1945–1946, edited by Omar Pound and Robert Spoo (Oxford University Press [US], 1999). Out of print; may be available from libraries or second-hand bookshops.
A volume of letters capturing the most traumatic experience of Ezra Pound's life, when he was incarcerated at the end of World War II and indicted for treason. The previously unpublished correspondence is combined with military and FBI documents, photographs and an extensive, insightful introduction to create the definitive work on this period of Pound's life, when he wrote his acclaimed Pisan Cantos and worked on his translations of Confucius.

Foamy Sky: The major poems of Miklos Radnoti, edited by Zsuzsanna Ozvath and Frederick Turner (Princeton University Press, 1992). Out of print; may be available from libraries or second-hand bookshops.
Miklos Radnoti (1909–1944) wrote some of Hungary's most cherished love poems and political verse even as he anticipated death under the Nazis. Of Jewish descent, he was forced into a slave-labour squad and worked in the Balkans building roads. Near the end of the war, the guards murdered the disabled prisoners and buried the bodies in a mass grave. Radnoti's last poems were found in his coat pocket when his body was exhumed.

Rounding the Horn: Collected poems by Jon Stallworthy (Carcanet Press, 1998) £8.95.
Jon Stallworthy rounded the Horn en route to being born in London. World War II and his colonial inheritance informs the poetry in this collection. The presence of the past has also informed some of his best-known work: 'No Ordinary Sunday', 'A Letter From Berlin' and 'The Almond Tree'.

War Stories: Poems about long ago and now by Howard Nemerov (University of Chicago Press, 1989) £8.
Although written much later, these poems speak clearly of the experience of being a flyer in World War II.

The World Below the Window: Poems 1937–1997 by William Jay Smith (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002) £12.
These poems cover the entire career of one of America's acknowledged masters. Smith melds an array of influences – from French symbolists to W H Auden and Wallace Stevens – into his own unmistakable voice, moving powerfully from the compressed, dark lyrics of his pre-war poetry to experiments with a long free-verse line in the 1960s. There are also memorable lyrics that capture the horror of World War II, as well as hilarious light verse.

Zone of the Interior: A memoir 1942–1947 by Daniel Hoffman (Louisiana State University Press, 2000). US edition only; may be available from online bookshops.
A memoir of the 'zone of the interior', which designated military service within the continental USA during World War II. Written by former American poet laureate Daniel Hoffman, it describes the unusual experiences of life on the home front, as well as providing testimony to its influence on his poetry.

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Websites

World War Two websites from Channel 4

Escape from Colditz
www.channel4.com/history/microsites/C/colditz/index.html
Recreates the repeated escapes from this prison that the Germans believed was escape-proof.

Holocaust on Trial
http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/holocaust/
Explores Holocaust denial and a key libel trial that resulted from it.

The Real Mussolini and The Real Rommel
www.channel4.com/history/microsites/R/real_lives/index.html
Channel 4's portrait gallery.

Secret History: Search for the Struma, Television in the Third Reich and Wartime Crime
www.channel4.com/history/microsites/S/sh01/index.html
The site that looks behind the accepted version of history.

The Real Charlotte Grays
www.channel4.com/history/microsites/C/charlotte_gray/home.html
Tells the stories of the women sent to work undercover in Nazi-occupied France by the Special Operations Executive. Some were captured and tortured, a few escaped or survived the war in prison, and 13 were executed by the Nazis.

Guide to the 20th Century
www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/guide20/
Part of Channel 4's Travel Guides, this looks at the key events and individuals of the 20th century, and covers the Second World War.

Battle Stations
www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/a-b/battle.html
Technology was a dominant and determining theme of World War II. Historian Robin Cross looks at 10 examples – aircraft, tanks, ships and weapons – that show how crucial technological innovation was to that conflict.

Other websites

Channel 4 Television takes no responsibility for the content of any third-party sites.

Poetry and War: The Second World War 1939–1948
http://perso.univ-lyon2.fr/~goethals/warpoet/WW2_menu.html
Interesting site with a selection of poetry and (particularly good) a section of short biographies of a mass of major and minor poets who produced work in English during the war years. Created by an associate professor at the Université Lumière Lyon 2 in France.

Poetry and War
www.ppu.org.uk/learn/poetry/index.html
Substantial website on poetry and war in the 20th century. There is a section on World War II, with a selection of poems (including one by Keith Douglas). The site is sponsored by the anti-war Peace Pledge Union and reflects this bias.

World War II Prisoner of War Poetry
http://www.merkki.com/poetry.htm
A selection of poetry by – mainly anonymous – US prisoners of war at Stalag Luft 1 in Germany during the Second World War.

Keith Douglas: Biographical notes
http://website.lineone.net/~nusquam/biodouglas.htm
A brief biography and six of the poems.

The Heart's Assurance (1990)
www.michael-tippett.com/iocheartseng.htm
Short article on how British composer Michael Tippett came to write a song-cycle using the poetry of Alun Lewis and Sidney Keyes.

The Alun Lewis Page
http://pages.eidosnet.co.uk/guttesen/alewis/
A brief biography and six of the poems, by a Danish fan.

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Other

Interview with Mair Lewis
Recorded memoirs of the childhood of Mair Lewis (sister of Alun Lewis), including activities undertaken with her brother and his poetry. She also reads one of his poems. Part of the South Wales Coalfield Collection of the University of Wales, Swansea (AUD/141: Interview of Lewis, Mair):
The South Wales Miners' Library
Hendrefoelan House
Hendrefoelan
Gower Road
Swansea
Librarian: Sian Williams
Tel: 01792 518 603

Alun Lewis: Death and Beauty (BBC Wales, 1994).
Television film starring Peter Wingfield as the poet.

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Presenter Tom Paulin at the grave of Keith Douglas

Credits

Produced to accompany Soldier Poets (a Lion Television production for Channel 4), first shown on Channel 4 in November 2003.

Managing editor: Katie Streten
Project manager: Caroline Sutton
Designer: Alan (Fred) Pipes
Writer/editor: Nancy Duin

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Channel 4 Television takes no responsibility for the content of any third-party sites.

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