Sunday book pick: The poems in WH Auden’s ‘Another Time’ flaunt his talents as a storyteller

WH Auden (1907–1973) was a British-American poet whose first collection of poetry Poems was published by TS Eliot, the master himself, for Faber and Faber in 1930. Ten years later, Auden published his collection Another Time which was the first book following his departure to America from England. In 2019, Faber and Faber released the 90th-anniversary edition of the book which contains his wider body of work including some of his most well-known and oft-quoted poems.

Life leaks away

The fact that Auden’s poetry speaks to us almost a hundred years since it was first published is a testament to how he perfected his style and technique and engaged with the politics, faith, and morals of his time. Besides his most visible poems – for instance, “Funeral Blues” and “Epitaph on a Tyrant” – the collection also has some of Auden’s early and lesser-known works. The book is divided into three sections – People and Places, Lighter Poems, and Occasional Poems – and what remains constant in Auden through the ages is his commitment to viewing the most ordinary human experience with the devotion of someone witnessing a miracle.

Take, for example,

“And Time with us was always popular. 
When have we not preferred some going round
To going straight to where we are?”

Or,

“In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.”

The mundane is always tinged with the eventuality of our existence ceasing to be. So then, what does Time mean for our finite life on earth? Besides the headaches and worries of the every day, every generation witnesses life-altering horrors that make them question everything they have held sacred – this might be the law, our idea of justice, and god itself. Auden, who was a young boy when World War One broke out and almost thirty when World War Two, experienced these mammoth shifts twice over. In one poem he writes:

“Others say, Law is our Fate;
Others say, Law is our State;
Others say, others say
Law is no more
Law has gone away

And always the loud angry crowd
Very angry and very loud
Law is We,
And always the soft idiot softly Me.”

In the face of changing times, Auden knows that his powers as a poet – and an individual – are limited. The artistic voice often drowns in the din of political and social turmoil, especially those brought about by widescale wars. In “Refugee Blues”, he imagines the anguish of refugees. The aftermath of the wars left many displaced but instead of offering shelter and livelihood to these vulnerable populations, host countries were worried that the refugees would “steal their bread”. It’s telling how this sentiment has remained unchanged. In these poems, one detects the wisdom of knowing that one is immaterial to history, and what accompanies this is gentlemanly anguish and quiet resignation that you are often powerless to make the changes you want to see.

Poetry as storytelling

In the first section People and Places, Auden travels around Europe addressing the old masters that seem to have a profound impact on him. He hops from Oxford to Brussels, the Muśee des Beaux Arts and Dover, and converses with long-dead kings, philosophers and painters like Napolean, Edward Lear, Herman Melville and others. He writes odes to Sigmund Freud and WB Yeats – coincidentally both died in 1939 – as a frank acceptance of their genius.

I found his poem to Yeats especially interesting considering how Auden for much of his life was considered a poorer version of Yeats (and Eliot).

“Earth, receive an honoured guest;
William Years is laid to rest:
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.”

His love poems, of which there are many, are funny and irreverent. It was refreshing to see a poet write about love as an effervescent emotion instead of something that makes us utterly conscious of our failures and eventually breaks our hearts. These poems often display a juvenile temperament where lovers do silly things not because their good sense is compromised but because love allows them to be childlike and vulnerable in their beloved’s company.

Sample this:

“When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I’m picking my nose.”

— O Tell Me the Truth About Love

and,

“When I was a child, I
Loved a pumping-engine
Thought it every bit as
Beautiful as you.”

In the “Three Ballads” and “Four Cabaret Songs for Miss Hedli Anderson”, Auden follows the common a-b-a-b rhyming scheme as he tells stories – with rather shocking twists – through the medium of poetry. Hs more conventionally structured poems bring out the playful and natural storyteller side of Auden’s. In some instances, I could visualise the poem as a page out of Grimm’s fairy tales, albeit for a more mature audience.

Auden’s poetry illustrates the trickle-down effect of poorly thought-out decisions of politicians and rulers and how they affect the common man. Additionally, he suggests that not all misfits and outlaws are the way they are because of their own doings – sometimes, they are victims of cruelty perpetuated by better-adjusted individuals or simply products of their unhappy childhoods. This intertextuality also comes through in the sections People and Places where idyllic locations across Europe have nurtured some of humanity’s finest minds. It is then, entirely possible, that each of us is deeply enmeshed in our physical surroundings and social harmony is of utmost importance for a normal, content life.

In “The Unknown Citizen”, the protagonist is a no-name man who lived with whatever life threw at him. He never complained, never questioned the government, and generally agreed with populist views. When death takes him away, there is a general sense of loss of a good citizen, but his happiness and freedom as an individual do not seem to concern anyone.

“Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should have certainly heard.”

Keeping with the title, Auden’s “another time” suggests a time within a time when our past, present and future collide to create a reality – an illusion, rather – where our hurts numb with time and the years ahead appear to be brimming with hope, if only we show the courage to accept that our existence is transient in time’s continuous flow.

Another Time, WH Auden, Faber and Faber.