Tony Harrison and the Guardian

Abstract

In 1991 Tony Harrison was commissioned by Alan Rusbridger, then editor of the Guardian, to write two poems on the Gulf War. The result was ‘Initial Illumination’ and ‘’A Cold Coming’. in 1995, the newspaper sent Harrison to Bosnia to send poems based on his eye-witnessing of the war, resulting in The Cycles of Donji Vakuf. In 2003, the invasion of Iraq produced two new war poems: Iraquatrains and Baghdad Lullaby. Armitstead, herself a Guardian journalist, sets these important poems in their historical and cultural contexts, and argues that the relationship between poet and paper was unique and unlikely to be repeated in the foreseeable future..