A Poem by W.H. Auden for Inauguration Day

January 20, 2017 //

This is one of my favorite poems.

September 1, 1939

I have read it for years. I thought I understood its meaning. But it reads differently now. More ominous because more personal. More relevant.

Categories Education Reform

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Catherine Blanche King says:

January 20, 2017 at 11:47 am

Diane: as we watch the inauguration, my hope for this site and so many others: continue “to show an affirming flame.”

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Gordon Wilder says:

January 20, 2017 at 11:54 am

AGREED. I wonder how many viewers of this blog watch Deutsche Welle the German TV news organization. i HIGHLY recommend it. I posted the Scottish editorial equating the Trump presidency to Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone”. Now as I fear this will not see much light of day in American “news” reporting the following letter, self explanatory, is also posted.

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT ELECT:
In these final days before your inauguration, we thought it might be helpful to clarify how we see the relationship between your administration and the American press corps.
It will come as no surprise to you that we see the relationship as strained. Reports over the last few days that your press secretary is considering pulling news media offices out of the White House are the latest in a pattern of behavior that has persisted throughout the campaign: You’ve banned news organizations from covering you. You’ve taken to Twitter to taunt and threaten individual reporters and encouraged your supporters to do the same. You’ve advocated for looser libel laws and threatened numerous lawsuits of your own, none of which has materialized. You’ve avoided the press when you could and flouted the norms of pool reporting and regular press conferences. You’ve ridiculed a reporter who wrote something you didn’t like because he has a disability.
All of this, of course, is your choice and, in a way, your right. While the Constitution protects the freedom of the press, it doesn’t dictate how the president must honor that; regular press conferences aren’t enshrined in the document.
But while you have every right to decide your ground rules for engaging with the press, we have some, too. It is, after all, our airtime and column inches that you are seeking to influence. We, not you, decide how best to serve our readers, listeners, and viewers. So think of what follows as a backgrounder on what to expect from us over the next four years.
Related: The coming storm for journalism under Trump
Access is preferable, but not critical. You may decide that giving reporters access to your administration has no upside. We think that would be a mistake on your part, but again, it’s your choice. We are very good at finding alternative ways to get information; indeed, some of the best reporting during the campaign came from news organizations that were banned from your rallies. Telling reporters that they won’t get access to something isn’t what we’d prefer, but it’s a challenge we relish.
Off the record and other ground rules are ours—not yours—to set.We may agree to speak to some of your officials off the record, or we may not. We may attend background briefings or off-the-record social events, or we may skip them. That’s our choice. If you think reporters who don’t agree to the rules, and are shut out, won’t get the story, see above.
We decide how much airtime to give your spokespeople and surrogates. We will strive to get your point of view across, even if you seek to shut us out. But that does not mean we are required to turn our airwaves or column inches over to people who repeatedly distort or bend the truth. We will call them out when they do, and we reserve the right, in the most egregious cases, to ban them from our outlets.
We believe there is an objective truth, and we will hold you to that.When you or your surrogates say or tweet something that is demonstrably wrong, we will say so, repeatedly. Facts are what we do, and we have no obligation to repeat false assertions; the fact that you or someone on your team said them is newsworthy, but so is the fact that they don’t stand up to scrutiny. Both aspects should receive equal weight.
We’ll obsess over the details of government. You and your staff sit in the White House, but the American government is a sprawling thing. We will fan reporters out across the government, embed them in your agencies, source up those bureaucrats. The result will be that while you may seek to control what comes out of the West Wing, we’ll have the upper hand in covering how your policies are carried out.
We will set higher standards for ourselves than ever before. We credit you with highlighting serious and widespread distrust in the media across the political spectrum. Your campaign tapped into that, and it was a bracing wake-up call for us. We have to regain that trust. And we’ll do it through accurate, fearless reporting, by acknowledging our errors and abiding by the most stringent ethical standards we set for ourselves.
Related: 12 images that capture the new reality show at Trump Tower
We’re going to work together. You have tried to divide us and use reporters’ deep competitive streaks to cause family fights. Those days are ending. We now recognize that the challenge of covering you requires that we cooperate and help one another whenever possible. So, when you shout down or ignore a reporter at a press conference who has said something you don’t like, you’re going to face a unified front. We’ll work together on stories when it makes sense, and make sure the world hears when our colleagues write stories of importance. We will, of course, still have disagreements, and even important debates, about ethics or taste or fair comment. But those debates will be ours to begin and end.
We’re playing the long game. Best-case scenario, you’re going to be in this job for eight years. We’ve been around since the founding of the republic, and our role in this great democracy has been ratified and reinforced again and again and again. You have forced us to rethink the most fundamental questions about who we are and what we are here for. For that we are most grateful.
Enjoy your inauguration.
—The Press Corps

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- Laura H. Chapman says:
  
  January 20, 2017 at 2:51 pm
  
  I have heard several hosts of television “news” refer to parts of this statement.
  
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GregB says:

January 20, 2017 at 1:29 pm

It seems like this August 1941 article by Dorothy Thompson who, together with Eleanor Roosevelt, was one of the two most prominent women of her time, is a perfect companion to Auden’s poem. She was a correspondent in Berlin–and married to Sinclair Lewis at the time–from 1927 to 1934 and was expelled from Germany on Hitler’s personal orders after her unflattering portrayals of him.
http://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/

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m4potw says:

January 20, 2017 at 3:11 pm

Dear Dr. Ravitch;

I really love that poem. Thank you for your wisdom in posting the beautiful description in these verses. I love to recite two stanzas:

[start stanzas]

…
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
…
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

[end stanzas]

Most importantly, the best stanza is the conclusion:

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

Very respectfully yours,

May King

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- dianeravitch says:
  
  January 20, 2017 at 3:26 pm
  
  Thanks, May: we must love another or die.
  
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Bill Rosenthal says:

January 20, 2017 at 3:56 pm

Dear Dr. Ravitch,

Thank you for posting this timeless verse. I reread it every September 1, and it is perfectly fitting on this national helliday. It’s been said that late in life, Auden renounced the line “We must love one another or die.” No matter: He loosed this line unto the interpretive world, and now we own them. Surely the poet who wrote, “There is no such thing as the State/And no one exists alone” would applaud your response to May King.

In sorrow, struggle, and solidarity,

Bill Rosenthal
Queens, NY

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m4potw says:

January 20, 2017 at 3:59 pm

Yes, our current world is in stupor lies.

Is there a solution?

We all need to be divergence and adaptation with integrity and diplomacy – NOT gullibility.

In my own experiences, after 1975, northern Communism invaded southern Capitalism, the UGLY reality happened quickly within the first 6 months.

1) Whoever is against Communism, like press, business owners, and all military personnel GO TO CONCENTRATED CAMP to get killed silently.

2) Currency was repeatedly exchanged until becoming valueless to be worse than piece of paper because it cannot be use as a clean napkin to clean snot out of the nose.

3) All basic and necessity staples belonged to local distribution from government control like rice, flour, all kinds of tin and dry foods.

4) Everything is in the BLACK market, but only the rich can afford it.

5) All movements are completely controlled by local and regional police forces.

In short, it does not matter how intelligent people can be, people need to be divergent and very cautious with friends and in-law relatives who are too poor and too coward to attempt to be informers for corrupted/tricky law enforcers.

All corrupted authorities will fight each other for control, power, and wealth. All good people will be silent. All others will strive to survive. Life is with many shades of GRAY. There will be a danger that blends in all corners of the world. Curses will come true if conscientious people know how to gather in any public places to pray together peacefully. God will honor conscientious people on Earth.

Mostly, conscientious people must learn to promote the strategy of “bared to the bone” consumption so that corporate will learn slowly to respect workers’ and consumers’ rights and interests. For instance, Chinese Communists surrenders to work force in order to allow capitalism and corruption in China.

We all need to stop using Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, and Instagram so that bad authority cannot spread any threat successfully.

We do not need to upgrade any Microsoft new software.

We need to organize our UNDERGROUND MEMBERSHIP town hall meeting. All veteran educators must spearhead for this. Back2basic

Please remember that:

[start quote]

And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

[end quote]

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Dirck Roosevelt says:

January 20, 2017 at 4:43 pm

Thanks for posting this lovely and haunting poem. It has been in my mind continually all fall.

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