Poetry
Poems
W. H. Auden · 1930
Synopsis
The book opens with a short piece in which two families of the hills of northern England are at war. There follow thirty untitled poems, numbered in Roman numerals: a secret agent charged with holding the passes, a walker stopped above the abandoned washing floors of a lead mine, a country seen from above as the hawk or the helmeted airman sees it, a prayer addressed to love. The sentence drops articles and connectives, in the manner of old English poetry.
Context
The book appeared from Faber in 1930, in a print run of a thousand copies: Eliot, who was in charge of poetry there and had turned down a first manuscript in 1927, had published the opening piece in his journal early in the year. A second edition, in 1933, replaced seven poems. People soon spoke of the Auden generation. The author later took up these poems again, revising them, gave them titles in 1945 and dropped several of them from his later collections.
Who it is for
A piece of about thirty pages and thirty short poems; in French, only a few poems, in selections.
Prizes and reception
Naomi Mitchison, one of the first to review it, wondered whether she dared to call it a winner; F. R. Leavis was more reserved.
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