W. H. Auden - Poetry Quotes

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Before people complain of the obscurity of modern poetry, they should first examine their consciences and ask themselves with how many people and on how many occasions they have genuinely and profoundly shared some experience with another; they might also ask themselves how much poetry of any period they can honestly say that they understand.

W. H. Auden
Earth, receive an honored guest;
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.

W. H. Auden
Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable.

W. H. Auden
Of the many definitions of poetry, the simplest is still the best: 'memorable speech.'

W. H. Auden
To some degree every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one.

W. H. Auden
You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.

W. H. Auden
Whatever its actual content and overt interest, every poem is rooted in imaginative awe. Poetry can do a hundred and one things, delight, sadden, disturb, amuse, instruct—it may express every possible shade of emotion, and describe every conceivable kind of event, but there is only one thing that all poetry must do; it must praise all it can for being and for happening.

W. H. Auden
Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings.

W. H. Auden
Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still.

W. H. Auden
A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think.
Music is immediate, it goes on to become.

W. H. Auden
The true men of action in our time, those who transform the world, are not the politicians and statesmen, but the scientists. Unfortunately, poetry cannot celebrate them because their deeds are concerned with things, not persons and are, therefore speechless.

W. H. Auden
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its saying where executives
Would never want to tamper.

W. H. Auden
There has been a vast output of critical studies in contemporary poetry, some of them first rate, but I do not think that, as a rule, a poet should read them.

W. H. Auden
The primary function of poetry, as of all the arts, is to make us more aware of ourselves and the world around us. I do not know if such increased awareness makes us more moral or more efficient. I hope not. I think it makes us more human, and I am quite certain it makes us more difficult to deceive.

W. H. Auden