Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Raiders' Dawn: "On death and beauty―till a bullet stopped his song"
    Raiders' Dawn: "On death and beauty―till a bullet stopped his song"
    Raiders' Dawn: "On death and beauty―till a bullet stopped his song"
    Ebook71 pages40 minutes

    Raiders' Dawn: "On death and beauty―till a bullet stopped his song"

    By Alun Lewis

    5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Alun Lewis was born on 1st July 1915 at Cwmaman, near Aberdare in the Cynon Valley in the South Wales Coalfield.

    His parents were both school teachers at llanwern. Lewis was one of four children; a younger sister, and two brothers.

    He was enthusiastic about writing from an early age. Lewis won a scholarship to attend Cowbridge Grammar School and from there went on to the University College of Wales and obtained a first in history in 1935. From there he went to the University of Manchester on a Pickles Research Fellowship and obtained his M.A in 1937.

    Lewis first tried his hand at journalism but when he didn’t succeed he turned to work as a supply teacher.

    In 1939, Lewis met Gweno Ellis, a teacher, whom he later married on 5th July 1941.

    Lewis was committed to pacifism but with the outbreak of World War II these principles were overcome by his desire to confront and defeat the evils of fascism. Enlisting, in 1940, he joined the Royal Engineers but then for reasons unknown he sought and gained a commission in an infantry battalion.

    In 1941 he collaborated with artists John Petts and Brenda Chamberlain on the ‘Caseg broadsheets’. These were inspired by chapbooks and broadside ballads and featured original woodcut artwork by Petts and poetry from prominent Welsh poets of the time including Dylan Thomas. Lewis was keen to create affordable literature for the masses. Unfortunately, sales were few and funds soon ran out.

    His first published book, in 1942, was the poetry collection ‘Raider's Dawn and Other Poems’. The same year a collection of short stories, ‘The Last Inspection’ followed. To round out the year he was dispatched to India to serve with the 6th Battalion of the South Wales Borderers.

    Lewis' poems about the war and his experiences certainly relay and explore many facets. His poetry is testament to his talents that have him rightly regarded as one of Britain’s most promising War Poets albeit on the thinnest of publications.

    By 1944 he was a lieutenant in Burma fighting the Japanese. What followed next has been interpreted in several ways. On 5th March 1944 he was found, with a gun shot wound to the head, near the officer’s toilets. One account says he had been washing and shaving and then, it seems, tripped and accidentally shot himself. Indeed, that was the official version written up by the army. Another, and perhaps more plausible account classes it as a suicide, the gun was still in his hand. Fatally wounded he survived for another 6 hours.

    Whatever the truth as to how or why Alun Lewis died on March 5th, 1944. He was 28.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPortable Poetry
    Release dateJun 14, 2018
    ISBN9781787800649
    Raiders' Dawn: "On death and beauty―till a bullet stopped his song"

    Related to Raiders' Dawn

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Remembering Steve Ditko: Forget Kirby Dots, Let's Talk Ditko Sparkles

      Jul 8, 2018

      The idiosyncratic co-creator of Spider-Man, Doctor Strange and many lesser-known comics characters died last week. His distinctive storytelling style shaped generations of comics readers.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Kafka On The Tram

      Mar 1, 2024

      Enrique Vila-Matas ON ONCE again re-reading the penultimate fragment of Robert Walser's Jakob von Gunten—the part where Herr Benjamenta and the narrator go off traveling together, dreaming of absolute freedom—I sense a possible family resemblance wit

      3 min read

    • Article

      The 300… Athenians?!

      Jan 24, 2022

      The 300… Athenians?!
      6 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      May 1, 2020

      How on the Kama River the eye grows dark,when the cities stand on oaken knees. Disguising itself in a web, beard to beard,the burning pine grove runs, younger in the water. The water resisted one hundred and four oars,bearing them up and down to Kaza

      3 min read

    • Article

      She Was The Toast Of The World

      Jun 1, 2022

      She Was The Toast Of The World
      8 min read

    • Article

      My Dad’s Ode To Autumn

      Oct 20, 2021

      My Dad’s Ode To Autumn
      5 min read

    • Article

      ‘And For That Minute A Blackbird Sang’

      Jul 28, 2021

      WHEN the poet Edward Thomas was leaving his home at Steep in Hampshire permanently in 1916, to go to war, he wrote of his love of the Shoulder of Mutton Hill in the nearby Ashford Hangers. In When First, he recalled the first time he had seen the hil

      4 min read

    • Article

      An Appreciation Of Muriel Rukeyser, “St. Roach”

      Sep 1, 2021

      For that I never knew you, I only learned to dread you,for that I never touched you, they told me you are filth,they showed me by every action to despise your kind;for that I saw my people making war on you,I could not tell you apart, one from anothe

      15 min read

    • Article

      Thought For The Year 2024

      Jan 3, 2024

      I sit in one of the divesOn Fifty-second StreetUncertain and afraidAs the clever hopes expireOf a low dishonest decade:Waves of anger and fearCirculate over the brightAnd darkened land of the earth… YOU might remember those opening lines of September

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Arif Anwar

      Dec 9, 2021

      I’m on track to have finished a book a week in 2021, which I’m happy with given that so much of my time is spoken for by family, work, and writing. I don’t like stuffing 100-plus books into a year like passengers in a rush hour subway car, leaving me

      13 min read

    • Article

      Poem Of The Week: The North Wind By Anne Brontë

      May 8, 2023

      That wind is from the North, I know it well;No other breeze could have so wild a swell.Now deep and loud it thunders round my cell,Then faintly dies,And softly sighs,And moans and murmurs mournfully.I know its language; thus is speaks to me – ‘I have

      3 min read

    • Article

      Finding Facts In Fiction

      Mar 12, 2021

      Finding Facts In Fiction
      10 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Adam Dalva

      Dec 14, 2020

      Anyone who teaches creative writing knows that our students bring us to the most implausible worlds—in one class, you might experience a sword fight on Mars, a break-up in a college dorm, and an admission that changes an identity forever. In an impos

      7 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Matt Seidel

      Dec 9, 2017

      I tend to buy used books in bunches, which means the haul from some expeditions stays buried for weeks, months, years even. For this entry, I highlight three finds that, breaking custom, I bought and read almost immediately this year: Hugo Charteris’

      6 min read

    • Article

      An Apprenticeship

      Dec 1, 2021

      An Apprenticeship
      39 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Jun 5, 2023

      Books
      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Raiders' Dawn

    5/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Raiders' Dawn - Alun Lewis

      2^book_preview_excerpt.htmluWr6~ZL&cgktɣC4@[>c{= GxE"swrI1lg96zG~ t[ݏӱw?ʝɴ)P t }&Stۛބ6לIL.PNw~3n~9i4u Xs詰i:$!7 bKm5vޒ]Æe `l#ޓwV;ލٙ\\Cfi\qaCm= f{HhޤܹJD4n e2}jBZ0e>ѹ@*rr3q-. !Ř7?^#.t @XP"532n:`V{x=^In:]; ƻZ@8H|cӰa*8'D,L,&fz.t#{<XFR3"R MBulD"M{v54'pUl։ͣ.|LCrqBVY*S0^|D5-9q_*x_y@E%O ɝ36x#$m!C*9zbsv ^mM(P1<ՑjaS2dRA>.Ru}N;ӣxբϩɼ56wE:ڒ>) ypVpl:3c|v%AĉPl}+pr>&T6FZȒV?|a;HLG+l8coazdւo~a2-fIMjlJ̸9Mn݂٫mj /GZ|bkAz+4kBS7Euut@LH'C8C$m1 -]zPT0çH =Jj.4]`+?U/=9st8N;<J (3iRm`h8I3DHN໏I Ќi%錫⩠ڑ&BW:ygDz87Zzw'Mp *̢:8wJ\Hs!\W4FPD;߫c5a:č`_$<,$ Q XzdFד3;^վ{}+/A&Zjbd;!}ցD3Mk \u, !,d  3iP  \eRѵ4Q9$3d^Xiݒ&uWȄ\Hi49k[$;ƂӆwIƭ0)Վcj uO~$%$Aq.lHr:d`[8O1P7V~?Ft) ]bȢ珳]_>Ǧ]Epcw.t4>~fj:|uER!?;:07M,~ea{9'k٧lll*'KO~ n|ř.l*ߵ8Shξ D 2LwV1UCJ(#]ԗ,w.Vl\5HڈL/]]b?ZAں?ܬ~;N *g@bpfw;ݿu^_I-4
      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1