Perhaps not since Rupert Brooke has a war poet so inspired as many fellow-poets as Drummond Allison, who was killed on the Italian front in December 1943. Allison was twenty-two, and had been in harm’s way for just two weeks less one day. He met his death leading an infantry attack over a few yards of ground more reminiscent of the Kaiser’s than Hitler’s War. Ever since, fellow-poets have paid tribute to Allison’s energy, charm and vigorous, even audacious verse.
Allison left behind just one collection, The Yellow Night (1944), yet fellow-poets who have written verse in tribute to him include Robert Conquest, Robert Greacen (two poems), Sidney Keyes, John Lehmann, Roy McFadden, David Wright and …
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