#auden — Public Fediverse posts

An Answer to Auden: The Truth About Love, 1937 to 2026

In 1937, W. H. Auden published “O Tell Me the Truth About Love” inside a sequence called Twelve Songs. The poem is a list of comic guesses about what love might look like, smell like, sound like, do. Each refrain stanza ends in the same plea: tell me. The song is a young man’s question asked across a noisy room, hoping someone older will answer.

What strikes me about Auden’s poem is that it never gets the answer. The poem ends with another question. That refusal to answer is honest in 1937, when Europe was breaking and a man’s love could not yet be named in his own newspapers. But eighty-nine years later, with a long marriage in the rearview and a mother and father in the ground, the silence has paid its rent. It is time to answer Auden back.

The reply-poem is a long English tradition. Christopher Marlowe’s shepherd offered roses; Walter Raleigh’s nymph counted the days. The form requires that the answer use the asker’s structure as scaffolding, then build something the asker did not see. What follows uses Auden’s 1937 architecture exactly: seven stanzas of eight lines, alternating narrative and refrain, the same rhyme scheme, the same line counts. The walls match. The interior is mine.

I’ll Tell You the Truth About Love

after W. H. Auden

I

They said that love would find me late,
And said it finds you young,
They said it’s how a kitchen sounds
When supper has been sung,
The grocer paused above the till,
A driver shook his head,
The neighbor at the laundromat
Pretended he was dead.

II

It is patient as kettles still humming,
And as warm as the day before snow,
It is faithful as winter still coming,
And as slow as the calluses grow,
It is heavy as wood in the weather,
And as old as the beams up above,
It will hold the long marriage together,
And I’ll tell you the truth about love.

III

You’ll find it in a folded shirt
Your father saved for years,
You’ll find it tucked behind the books
That outlived all your fears,
It’s printed on the bottom of
The mug you cannot break,
It hums in radiators when
The first long winters wake.

IV

It will wake you with grief in the morning,
And it leaves like a guest on its way,
It will come without notice or warning,
And it stays until nothing’s to say,
It is stubborn as paint on the railing,
And as weighty as joists up above,
It will linger when everything’s failing,
And I’ll tell you the truth about love.

V

I searched the church on Christopher,
It wasn’t standing watch;
I drove the loop around the bay,
And studied every notch;
I don’t know what the river held,
Or what the streetlamp swore,
It wasn’t on the diner’s plate,
Or near the kitchen door.

VI

It is patient as wood in the ember,
And as warm as the dog at your feet,
It is older than time can remember
That you walked off alone in the street,
It is steady when houses grow shaken,
And as quiet as snow from above,
It can speak all the names that are taken,
And I’ll tell you the truth about love.

VII

It will come like a sweater you’re weaving,
From the wool of the years that have flown,
It arrives in the room you are leaving,
With the look of a face you have known,
It will hold what no science can steady,
And remain when the weather is rough,
It will stay when your friends are not ready,
And I’ll tell you the truth about love.

Auden asked because he was thirty and unsure. I answer because I am sixty-one and have watched what stays. The thing we keep asking the truth about, we keep asking because we are afraid the answer will be small. It is small. The answer is the kettle, the calluses, the room you are leaving. What it wears is a sweater you are still weaving. Auden left his question open in 1937. I close mine in 2026.

A quotation from W. H. Auden

Those who will not reason
Perish in the act:
Those who will not act
Perish for that reason.

W. H. Auden (1907-1973) Anglo-American poet [Wystan Hugh Auden]
“Shorts,” No. 7 (c. 1930), Collected Poems, Part 2 “1927-1932” (1976 ed.) [ed. Mendelson]

More about this quote: wist.info/auden-w-h/26031/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #whauden #auden #action #danger #deed #hesitation #hesitancy #inaction #indecision #irrationality #paralysis #passive #reason #reflex #thoughtlessness #unreason #whimsy

My poem ‘Eric’s Trip’ published in THE YELLING CONTINUES

As I’m sure you, whoever you are, already know, Sonic Youth are my official standard answer to ‘What’s your favourite band?’, a question I think we should ask more as adults because it’s much more fun and informative than ‘What do you do for work?’, which is all adults ever ask each other.

A little while back I read a poetry collection, the author of which I’ve completely forgotten, where there were several ekphrastic poems – poems inspired by a work of art – about songs by Bob Marley. Naturally, I thought, I could do that, but for Sonic Youth, so I went back to my favourite SY song, ‘Eric’s Trip’, from Daydream Nation (the Greatest Album Of All Time). Funny thing about ‘Eric’s Trip’ is that it’s already ekphrastic, which makes my poem doubly so. The song was inspired by The Trip, a film by Andy Warhol in which Eric Emerson, musician, dancer, actor and general Warhol hanger-on, takes acid and talks for a long time. A really long time. He really does go on. I actually transcribed the whole thing in order to write the poem and it took ages.

Anyway, my poem being an ekphrastic ekphrastic poem actually fits into a long tradition. Probably the most famous ekphrastic poem is WH Auden’s ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’, which was inspired by Pieter Brughel’s Landscape with Fall of Icarus, which was itself inspired by the myth of Icarus, most famously told by Ovid in the Metamorphoses. Here’s the painting:

Apparently this painting also inspired William Carlos Williams to write a poem of the same name.

Somewhere in the world, someone must’ve written a triply ekphrastic poem. I look forward to reading it. You can read my merely doubly ekphrastic poem on Procrastinating Writers United. Fans of SY will note that I piled in references to their other songs and even a particularly cool guitar of theirs, as well as to some other works by Warhol. Enjoy!

#art #auden #ekphrasticPoems #literature #music #myPoems #pieterBrueghel #poems #poetry #sonicYouth #wcWilliams #williamCarlosWilliams #words