Sir Stephen Spender (1909-1995): An English poet, critic, lecturer, and professor. His writings often reflect democratic leftist and idealistic qualities, and he is perhaps best well known for his contribution to The God That Failed (1949), a volume of essays by those disillusioned with communism. Though he often romanticized pre-war Germany through his novels and translations of Hölderlin and Schiller, he expressed a fierce hatred of National Socialism. During the Second World War he served in the London Fire Service, and many of his poems reflect his experience amid the flames and destruction that resulted from the German blitz against London. Like Air Raid Across the Bay at Plymouth, To Poets and Airmen is a prime example of the poet’s autobiographical reflections, being a powerful elegy on the iniquity of bombing innocent civilians and the dangers faced by a city’s defenders and rescuers.