Stephen Spender
Stephen Spender
Sir Stephen Harold Spender CBEwas an English poet, novelist and essayist who concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle in his work. He was appointed the seventeenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the United States Library of Congress in 1965...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth28 February 1909
writing thinking appreciate
An English poet writes, I think, just for people who are interested in poetry. An American poet writes, and feels that everyone ought to appreciate this. Then he has a deep sense of grievance . . .
inspiration writing people
A poet has to adapt himself, more or less consciously,to the demands of his vocation, and hence the peculiarities of poets and the condition of inspiration which many people have said is near to madness... The problem of creative writing is essentially one of concentration... a focusing of the attention in a special way.
writing voice luxury
What we call the freedom of the individual is not just the luxury of one intellectual to write what he likes to write but his being a voice which can speak for those who are silent.
writing sometimes empty
Sometimes when I am writing, I am aware of a rhythm, a dance, a fury, which is as yet empty of words.
uncles writing views
My uncle was famous for his balanced point of view. At the time of which I am writing (when he was nearly seventy) it had become so balanced, that the act of balancing seemed rather automatic.One had only to offer him an opinion for him to balance it with a counter- opinion of exactly the same weight, as a grocer puts a pound weight against a pound of sugar.
struggle writing confusion
I'm struggling at the end to get out of the valley of hectoring youth, journalistic middle age, imposture, moneymaking, public relations, bad writing, mental confusion.
divide laugh others people
People sometimes divide others into those you laugh at and those you laugh with. The young Auden was someone you could laugh-at-with.
shadow
Who live under the shadow of a war,/ What can I do that matters?
again happen lost moments
Moments that can never happen again and never lost their wonder.
angel gun years
History has tongues Has angels has guns has saved has praised Today proclaims Achievements of her exiles long returned Now no more rootless, for whom her printed page Glazes their bruised waste years in one Balancing present sky.
revolution affair whatever-happens
Whatever happens, I shall never be alone, I shall always have a fare, an affair, or a revolution.
flower hero sunset
Under the olive trees, from the ground Grows this flower, which is a wound. It is easier to ignore Than the heroes' sunset fire Of death plunged in their willed desire Raging with flags on the world's shore.
eye night light
To break out of the chaos of my darkness Into a lucid day is all my will. My words like eyes in night, stare to reach A centre for their light: and my acts thrown To distant places by impatient violence Yet lock together to mould a path of stone Out of my darkness into a lucid day.
eye light opposites
My words like eyes that flinch from light, refuse And shut upon obscurity; my acts Cast to their opposites by impatient violence Break up the sequent path; they fly On a circumference to avoid the centre.