The

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

presence in

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

had, as a side effect, the concentration of a group of Cairo poets. There had been a noticeable literary group in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...

before the war in

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

broke out, including university academics. Possibly as a reflection of that, there were two strands of literary activity and publication during the years 1942–1944. There was the ''Personal Landscape'' group centred on the publication of that name, founded by

Lawrence Durrell Lawrence George Durrell (; 27 February 1912 – 7 November 1990) was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer. He was the eldest brother of naturalist and writer Gerald Durrell. Born in India to British colonial p ...

, Robin Fedden and

Bernard Spencer Charles Bernard Spencer (1909 – 1963) was an English poet, translator, and editor. He was born in Madras, India and educated at Marlborough College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. At Marlborough he knew John Betjeman and Louis MacNeic ...

. There was also the ''

Salamander Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All t ...

'' group, which produced a magazine and the '' Oasis'' series of anthologies. To oversimplify, the first group produced poetic reputations, while the second, founded by servicemen, broadcast appeals and collected an archive of 17,000 poems written at the period. Poets such as

Terence Tiller Terence Rogers Tiller (19 September 1916 – 24 December 1987) was an English poet and radio producer. Early life, poet Tiller was born in Truro, Cornwall and educated at Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith.Obituary, ''The Times'', 5 January 198 ...

and

G. S. Fraser George Sutherland Fraser (8 November 1915 – 3 January 1980) was a Scotland, Scottish poet, literary critic and academic. Biography Fraser was born in Glasgow, Scotland, later moving with his family to Aberdeen. He attended the University of ...

had a foot in both camps.

Keith Douglas Keith Castellain Douglas (24 January 1920 – 9 June 1944) was a poet and soldier noted for his war poetry during the Second World War and his wry memoir of the Western Desert campaign, '' Alamein to Zem Zem''. He was killed in action during ...

, the iconic

war poet A war poet is a poet who participates in a war and writes about their experiences, or a non-combatant who writes poems about war. While the term is applied especially to those who served during the First World War, the term can be applied to a p ...

, was associated with the ''Personal Landscape'' group.

Alan Rook (William) Alan Rook OBE (1909 – 1990) was a British Cairo poet and edited the 1936 issue of ''New Oxford Poetry''. As a soldier In the Second World War Rook served as a Lieutenant anti-aircraft gunner with the 6th A.A. Division of the Royal Art ...

, John Gawsworth and John Waller published in ''Salamander''. Several of the Cairo poets appeared in the 'Poets in Uniform' issue of Tambimuttu's '' Poetry London'' early in 1941. An English literary presence persisted after the war, in the persons of P. H. Newby, Robert Liddell, Denys Johnson-Davies, Hilary Corke and D. J. Enright.

Poets in ''Personal Landscape. An Anthology of Exile'' (1945)

, Harold Edwards, Robin Fedden,

, Diana Gould, Charles Johnston, Robert Liddell,

Olivia Manning Olivia Mary Manning (2 March 1908 – 23 July 1980) was a British novelist, poet, writer, and reviewer. Her fiction and non-fiction, frequently detailing journeys and personal odysseys, were principally set in the United Kingdom, Euro ...

, Elie Papadimitiou,

Hugh Gordon Porteus Hugh Gordon Porteus (1906–1993) was an influential reviewer of art and literature in the London of the 1930s, and also a poet. He was an admirer of Wyndham Lewis and wrote the first critical book on him, published in 1932. Lewis portrayed Porteus ...

George Seferis Giorgos or George Seferis (; gr, Γιώργος Σεφέρης ), the pen name of Georgios Seferiades (Γεώργιος Σεφεριάδης; March 13 – September 20, 1971), was a Greek poet and diplomat. He was one of the most important G ...

, Ruth Speirs,

, David Gwyn Williams.

References

*''Many Histories Deep: The Personal Landscape Poets in Egypt 1940-45'' (1995) Roger Bowen *''Personal Landscapes: British Poets in Egypt during the Second World War'' by Jonathan Bolton *''From Oasis into Italy'' (1983), anthology from the continuing Salamander Oasis Trust *''Personal Modernisms: Anarchist Networks and the Later Avant-Gardes" (2014) by James Gifford

External links

Salamander Oasis Trust
— including brief historical note {{Schools of poetry Poetry movements British literary movements 20th-century British literature