Spokesman Books

The opening verses of James Kirkup's poem, 'White Shadows', about a photograph of the white shadow left by a man annihilated in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. Nagasaki suffered a second atomic attack three days later. White Shadows It was another morning, another morning. A morning like any other, of dust and death. A morning of war: raids, speeches, warnings. In wartime, all mornings are alike. Your were crossing a bridge in Hiroshima, A bridge of plain cement, a place without mystery. Below, the grey river ran as always, going somewhere, Metalled and moved by the early summer sun. The sun, that cast your shadow clearly, a healthy black. It was the shadow of a complete man, someone With a life, a personality, a past: but Moving through a present that could have no future. What were you thinking? Were you feared, hated, loved? Were you late for work? Sad or sick? Artist, student? Photographer or newsman returning home after a night...

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...

It is 63 years since the first atomic bombs were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; on the 6th and 9th of August respectively. Around the world this week many commemorative events are taking place. They include events in Leeds, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Germany, Austria, the USA and Canada. For details of what is happening in your area please go to the ICAN website. Spokesman Books commemorates these events with a collection of poems by James Kirkup entitled No More Hiroshimas . In the preface the author explains the genesis of this little collection: 'These poems all have their roots in one late afternoon at the land workers’ hostel outside Ponteland, Northumberland. As we entered the hostel we got the news that the first American Atom Bomb had been dropped on Japan, on the city of Hiroshima. It was the first time we had heard of that place that was to become a universal symbol of man’s inhumanity towards his fellow men.’ No More Hiroshimas, the poem which gives the...