James Kirkup has died, aged 91. In 2004 he sent us a copy of No More Hiroshimas . He had originally collected together this volume of hia A-bomb poems in 1983, but it took twenty years before we published it 'as a real book'. James recounts 'My A-Bomb Biography' in his preface. Here are the opening lines of the title poem, No Mor e Hiroshimas . At the station exit, my bundle in hand, Early the winter afternoon's wet snow Falls thinly round me, out of a crudded sun. I had forgotten to remember where I was. Looking about, I see it might be anywhere - A station, a town like any other in Japan, Ramshackle, muddy, noisy, drab; a cheerfully Shallow impermanence: peeling concrete, litter, 'Atomic Lotion, for hair fall-out', a flimsy department store; Racks and towers of neon, flashy over tiled and tilted waves Of little roofs, shacks cascading lemons and persimmons, Oranges and dark-red apples, shanties awash with rainbows Of squid and octopus, shellfish, slabs o...
Raymond Williams influenced generations. He was an academic, novelist and critic whose writings on politics, culture, the mass media and literature laid the foundations for the modern discipline of cultural studies.
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Mike Dibb
Saturday 9 February
The film documentary The Country and The City by the award winning Director Mike Dibb was first shown on BBC television. Raymond Williams' book of the same title was re-published by Spokesman Books in 2011, http://www.spokesmanbooks.com/acatalog/Raymond_Williams.html . The film explores contrasting ideas of country and city, challenging assumed values of the country as natural and demonstrating the labour necessary to maintain the apparent gentility of a country estate.
Screening is staged by the News from Nowhere Club who hold regular meetings on the second Saturday of each month from 7.30. Events are free. Further details can be found at, http://www.raymondwilliamsfoundation.org.uk/NfNprogramme.html .