“I will love you forever” swears the poet. I find this easy to swear to. “I will love you at 4:15 pm next Tuesday” – Is that still as easy? (Auden)
Can you make it?
This week on the Influence: W. H. Auden.
Auden’s one of those guys I come back to in my thoughts, and whose words I butcher in conversation.
Like there’s the essay where he talks about how if you have a poet who writes because he believes strongly that he has something to say, let that poet become a politician, a journalist, or anything else because he doesn’t have a chance of becoming a poet. But if you have a poet who is genuinely interested in putting one word next to another and seeing how they might affect each other, bleed into one another, then maybe – just maybe – that person might turn out to be a poet.
His writing – poems and essays – have been with me long enough to have become part of the layers of sedimentary rock that make up the floor holding up my writing self. (As is evident, I am not so with the smarts as him!)
Usually the “some words” posts are made up of longer quotes, but I feel I have quoted, paraphrased, or said things shaped by the man enough throughout the Influence’s existence that I can do right by him best by simply admitting it.
His gift for aphorism is almost as great as Oscar Wilde’s. But his distinction is how he will say a thing both sharp and true (Wilde seems to always be going for the kill). Case in point:
In times of joy, all of us wished we possessed a tail we could wag.
He also has a sensibility about reading that makes him kindred with that other great reader, Jorge Luis Borges:
There are good books which are only for adults.
There are no good books which are only for children.
AND I keep finding more aptly said things – apt because with all the big moves going on in my life at the moment, I need to hear things like the following said:
You owe it to all of us to get on with what you’re good at.
Amen. That might be my mantra for the next few years.
*estrellas*
The following poem exhibits much of the same bite and vulnerable spirit that rings through in the quotes above. Enjoy.
The More Loving One – W. H. Auden
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.
***
Happy timing!
Jose
p.s. PhD update: For those of you keeping up, I am happy to announce that me and mine are Cincinnati bound!
The Influence 