What can beat an evening of listening to poetry by Auden while sitting in a theatre designed like The Globe? Tonight, some of us were lucky to listen to Dana Gioia, Eavan Boland, William Logan and others read their favorite Auden poems.
Reading — or hearing, rather — “September 1, 1939″ in light of recent world events was a completely new experience from when I first read this poem years ago. My experience with the poem now reminds me of all that I know because of my age and all I still have to learn because of my age.
The following lines from “September 1, 1939″ stood out to me in a way they had not before:
“Those to whom evil is done/Do evil in return”
and
“We must love one another or die.”
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I will not be at AWP this year. I’ll miss seeing you all. I was looking forward to meeting some poet-moms this year, but it’ll have to wait until NYC.
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If you are faculty, please recommend 32 Poems to your school’s acquisitions librarian.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
My favorite Auden:
You will love your crooked neighbor
With your crooked heart.
Best,
Larissa
Hey girl – we miss you and 32 Poems!
You know Auden revised that line to read:
“We must love one another and die”.
Of course, it’s true, death being fairly unavoidable, but it’s a far worse line.
I like the look of the blog.
A friend just passed on this excellent article on the relevance of Auden which I now pass on to you:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-hitchens4mar04,1,6135495.story?coll=la-news-comment&ctrack=1&cset=true