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Product Description
A hardcover first edition, published by MacGibbon & Kee ( London) 1968. The first 'collected poems , ( it was later republished by Blackstaff as a perback edition)
Condition - very good, not ex library, small format hardcover ( brown cloth) in plain blue/ green dustjacket. Not ex library, no marks or inscriptions. Some foxing ( age spotting) to preliminary pages, dome dustdarkening to page block ends,
John Harold Hewitt (28 October 1907 – 22 June 1987) was perhaps the most significant Belfast poet to emerge before the 1960s generation of Northern Irish poets that included Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon and Michael Longley. He was appointed the first writer-in-residence at Queen's University Belfast in 1976.
From November 1930 to 1957, Hewitt held positions in the Belfast Museum & Art Gallery. His radical socialist ideals proved unacceptable to the Belfast Unionist establishment and he was passed over for promotion in 1953. Instead in 1957 he moved to Coventry, a city still rebuilding following its devastation during World War II . Hewitt was appointed Director of the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum where he worked until retirement in 1972.
Hewitt had an active political life, describing himself as "a man of the left", and was involved in the British Labour Party, the Fabian Society and the Belfast Peace League. He was attracted to the Ulster dissenting tradition and was drawn to a concept of regional identity within the island of Ireland, describing his identity as Ulster, Irish, British and European.
