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Slough (poem)
Poem by Sir John Betjeman
Slough (poem)
"Slough" is a ten-stanza poem by Sir John Betjeman first published in his 1937 collection Continual Dew. The British town of Slough was used as a dump for war surplus materials in the interwar years and then abruptly became the home of 850 new factories just before World War II. The sudden appearance of this "trading estate", which was quickly widely reproduced throughout Britain, prompted the poem. Seeing the new appearance of the town, Betjeman was struck by the "menace of things to come". He later regretted the poem's harshness. The poem is not about Slough specifically, but about the desecration caused by industrialisation and modernity in general, with the transformation of Slough being the epitome of these evils. Nevertheless, successive mayors of Slough have objected to the poem. The poem was published two years before the outbreak of World War II, during which Britain (including Slough itself) experienced actual air raids. Much later, in a guide to English churches, Betjeman referred...
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