Leslie Daiken


H. Gustav Klaus in his book Strong Words, Brave Deeds deemed Daiken’ a left wing poet’ and certainly in the 1930s and 1940s that label was fitting. Klaus also argued that Daiken belonged to a group of political poets of the Thirties period – he included Brendan Behan, Somhairle Macalastair, Charlie Donnelly and Ewart Milne as the others – who represent, again a Klaus’ term – ‘an urban rebel voice’  and representing  ‘a minor strand of Irish literature that has been erased from the literary map.’ Daiken’s obituaries also erased or omitted his radical past, focusing on his work on childrens’ literature, lullabies, street rhymes and the history of games and toys.

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Spanish Civil War - Two Irish Poets