Happy Birthday Auden

February 21st would have been the 100th birthday of the great poet W.H. Auden. He is perhaps one of the most important and prolific poets of the 20th century, and many people know his work even if they do not know his name. Auden was born in The U.K., but spent more than half his life in the U.S. and died an American citizen. His poetry often celebrates various aspects of the U.S. during the jazz age. His beautiful love poems were often written with careful neutrality to conceal his homosexuality. Auden's style is widely considered to have influenced the next generation of American poets, and he personally mentored many young students who would later become well-known in their own right.

Much of his poetry really is quite wonderful, but he often made his readers work for understanding. Critics often try so much to "get" him that they lose sight of the actual meaning. Slate actually mentioned that a poem was "... with Augustinian theologies and the raiments of Kirkagarde." Which strikes me as a very silly thing to say.

Perhaps his most famous work, "Funeral blues, is a truly heartbreaking, but also delicately beautiful piece. Many people recognize it from its use in the movies, but it is best heard in a recording done by the author. Both the original title of the poem and the person for whom it was really written are subjects of great debate:

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling in the sky the message He is Dead,

Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last forever,

I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

For nothing now can ever come to any good.