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W. H. Auden
(1)Posted on November 25th, 2008sherryBelles Lettres, Current Events, General, History, Publishing, The ArtsAugust, 1968
The Ogre does what ogres can,
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach,
The Ogre cannot master Speech:
About a subjugated plain,
Among its desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips.— W. H. Auden, from Selected Poetry of W. H. Auden (Modern Library, 1970)
Understandably enough, my first thought on reading this poem this morning was George W. Bush. But August 21, 1968 was the date of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, so the Ogre is probably Leonid Brezhnev. Or perhaps it’s a personification of the Supreme Soviet. One does have to think of Nikita Khrushchev’s shoe. Though this poem was written after both Khrushchev and Stalin, their spirit lingers in it. But the type is always with us, which is why it suits Mr. Bush so well.
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One Response to “W. H. Auden”
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koshembos November 25th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
The only politician of my generation who has mastered speech is Bill Clinton. Once take our permission to read poetry as I understand it, no other politician we know can interact with Nobel laureates on their level and immediately turn around and to the bazaar and talk with the vendors in their language.
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Sherry has also received an Artist Enrichment grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women.
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