Tag Archives: Auden

Advancing Retrogression

Posted on February 1, 2020 by JMN

http://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/opinion/brexit-uk.html “Put your flags away, you’re leaving, and take them with you.” [Mairead McGuinness, vice-president of the Parliament, to Nigel Farage, who waved a miniature Union Jack in the European Parliament as he bade farewell (2020).] “We must build a … Continue reading →

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Elderly Rubbish

Posted on November 26, 2019 by JMN

Exiled Thucydides knew All that a speech can say About democracy, And what dictators do, The elderly rubbish they talk To an apathetic grave; … (W. H. Auden, “September 1, 1939”) Do dictators skew elderly? In 1939: Stalin 61; Mussolini … Continue reading →

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Guide by the Perplexed

Posted on May 6, 2019 by JMN

The Poet sat in a dive on 52nd Street “uncertain and afraid.” I sit in a shed on 3rd Street where I, too, watch “the clever dreams expire of a low, dishonest decade.” The manic hubbub of tear-it-downers and bust-it-uppers … Continue reading →

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