Wystan Hugh Auden... Born On This Day- February 21st

He was British in 1907, but he chose the USA as his home. In the 1930s,he once lived in an apartment in Brooklyn with gay artists Carson McCulllers & Benjamin Britten. A friend & contemporary of Christopher Isherwood, W.H.Auden’s work has perhaps the widest range &the greatest depth of any English language poet of the past 3 centuries. Auden wrote in a voice that addressed readers personally rather than as part of a collective audience. His styles & forms extend from ballads & songs to haiku & limericks to sonnets, prose poems, & constructions of his own invention. His tone ranges from spirited comedy to memorable & profound, often in the same work. His poems manage to be secular & sacred, philosophical & erotic, personal & universal. This poem- Funeral Blues opened new interest in Auden’s work when it was featured in the film 4 Weddings & a Funeral:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.
Silence the pianos & with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crépe 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 & West,
My working week & 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 & dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean & sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Auden on the left, with Stephen Spender, center & Christopher Isherwood on the right

He wrote much erotic poetry, most not published in his lifetime, & by erotic, I mean dirty, really dirty:

               

We aligned mouths. We entwined. All act was clutch,
All fact contact, the attack & the interlock
Of tongues, the charms of arms. I shook at the touch
Of his fresh flesh, I rocked at the shock of his cock.


I plunged with a rhythmical lunge steady & slow,
And at every stroke made a corkscrew roll of my tongue.
His soul reeled in the feeling. He whimpered "Oh!"
As I tongued and squeezed and rolled and tickled and swung.


Then I pressed on the spot where the groin is joined to the cock,
Slipped a finger into his arse & massaged him from inside.
The secret sluices of his juices began to unlock.
He melted into what he felt. "O Jesus!" he cried.


Waves of immeasurable pleasures mounted his member in quick
Spasms. I lay still in the notch of his crotch inhaling his sweat.
His ring convulsed round my finger. Into me, rich & thick,
His hot spunk spouted in gouts, spurted in jet after jet.

(written in 1948)