Happy birthday, Auden.

by onepuzzledspecies

Auden with Spender and Isherwood on the beach

Wystan Hugh Auden was born on the 21st of Feburary, 1907.

Today I have marked the anniversary by listening to Auden’s own recorded readings of his poetry and to readings by other people on youtube. I also found a short documentary from 2000 that I hadn’t seen before: Tell Me The Truth About Love.

Reading some of his poems for myself, I once again remembered how much I enjoy the rythm and sound of Auden’s lyrics. I decided to record a few of my favourites, three poems from the collection Another Time, and two from the Sonnet Sequence “Sonnets from China,” which first appeared in Auden and Isherwood’s Journey to a War. 

Enjoy the poetry, the Norwegian accent and the background noise from the street outside our apartment.

Lullaby (from Another Time)

Wrapped in a yielding air (Another Time)

Another Time (from Another Time)

Sonnet I from “Sonnets from China” (Originally published in Journey to a War, the cycle was later cut down and edited slightly. This version is from Collected Poems, I think)

Sonnet XI from “Sonnets from China”

Auden with Cecil Day-Lewis and Stephen Spender. One of my favourites.

An older Auden in a characteristic pose, his face deeply wrinkled after one year too many of cigarettes, alcohol and Benzedrine. He used to compare his own face to a “wedding cake left out in the rain”