Forum / The W.H. Auden Cookbook

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    James Lloyd Davis
    May 30, 02:20pm

    W.H. Auden's recipe for the upbringing of a poet:

    "As much neurosis as the child can bear."

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    James Lloyd Davis
    May 30, 02:38pm

    W.H. Auden's recipe for good sense:

    1. Avoid opera.

    "No opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible."

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    James Lloyd Davis
    May 30, 02:49pm

    W.H. Auden's recipe for a book review:

    1. Be selective:

    "Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered."

    2. Avoid humility, pick out the worst of the lot and commence firing:

    "One cannot review a bad book without showing off."

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    James Lloyd Davis
    May 30, 02:59pm

    I found the first one in a chapter heading of The Guards by Ken Bruen. The other two are essentially the product of an idle mind and Google. Stop me before I hurt myself... or is it too late?

    I like the idea of a W. H. Auden Cookbook, though. Auden once said his face looked like the icing on a cake someone left out in the rain. I think he said that long before Richard Harris embarassed himself with that song... I could be wrong.

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    Sam Rasnake
    May 30, 03:40pm

    Yes to the upbringing.

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    Ann Bogle
    May 30, 05:44pm

    The Auden link at my blog ranks 8th out of 400 in number of page visitations since Blogger started tracking it in May '08. The links will take you to his essay on writing reprinted at Narrative Magazine (you can read the entire essay there if you sign in):

    http://annbogle.blogspot.com/2008/09/writing-essay-by-w-h-auden.html

    or:

    http://narrativemagazine.com/issues/fall-2008/writing

    JLD, these are great quotes. I fear, as a reviewer, what would happen if I followed his recipe. As objective observers, we can reflect on his statement and agree. At first, I read "forgotten" to mean "passed on," declined, not read, not widely read, but in the second clause it's clear that he can only mean books that are read, in the past were read, that take up a place in the bodily mind or slip it.

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    James Lloyd Davis
    May 30, 06:34pm

    Sam, see... this is why I can't lay claim to being a poet, lacking a firm foundation of proper neuroses... I am disgustingly healthy.

    Ann, I loved this from the Auden essay:
    "Literary gatherings, cocktail parties and the like, are a social nightmare because writers have no 'shop' to talk. Lawyers and doctors can entertain each other with stories about interesting cases, about experiences, that is to say, related to their professional interests but yet impersonal and outside themselves. Writers have no impersonal professional interests. The literary equivalent of talking shop would be writers reciting their own work at each other, an unpopular procedure for which only very young writers have the nerve."

    Times have changed, I think, as many writers will 'read' at a moment's notice. Writers are bold these days, even desperate. I blame those little iPod thingies that make it easy for a writer to have his or her work at their figertips. Still, back in the day, I've known a few to always carry several pages in their pocket, ready to whip them out and read a poem in the lull of a conversation... like it was a snub nosed .38 and they were Sam Spade.

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