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# Daniel Swift reads from Bomber County
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/daniel-swift-reads-from-bomber-county/
- Published: 2011-11-04T17:11:35.000Z
- Updated: 2026-04-23T00:49:19.000Z
- Description: Bomber County—The Poetry of a Lost Pilot's War is the title of the first book by Daniel Swift, assistant professor of English at Skidmore College. Part memoir (Swift's grandfather was a British bomber in WWII) and part literary criticism, the book is an investigation into the poetry and bombing ca
- Author: Open democracy
- Tags: Conflict & security, #Migrated, Shock and Awe - Speakers, ideas, conflict, #en, #Import 2026-04-09 17:19, #appended-excerpt

From the [*Guardian*](http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/21/bomber-county-daniel-swift?ref=opendemocracy.net) review of *Bomber County*:

*"Bomber County* is a strange beast, "a study of the poetry of a particular historical episode", intercut with a personal memoir. Swift's grandfather, Squadron Leader James Eric Swift, was killed in action in June 1943 during a raid on Münster. Swift visits his grave in Holland, looks at the cockpit of a Lancaster bomber and goes to Münster, but these sections can be ponderous. It's his evocation of some of our greatest writers wandering through a bombed-out London that really shines, and Swift should be congratulated for undertaking such an intelligent and idiosyncratic project."

*Bomber County—The Poetry of a Lost Pilot's War* is the title of the first book by Daniel Swift, assistant professor of English at Skidmore College. Part memoir (Swift's grandfather was a British bomber in WWII) and part literary criticism, the book is an investigation into the poetry and bombing campaigns of the Second World War. Swift read selections from his book September 29, 2011 at Skidmore College.