[New-Poetry] Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue, Auden is Acid, and Y'all Can Go Screw

[Skip Fox]

Wouldn't surprise me. (He's go a big one. . . . metaphorically speaking, of
course.) Yet it sound like something that might have been believed,
something half right. Auden might have been upset with Johnson's use, but I
believe his difficulties with the poem came long before. (It would be nice
to document and if I get time later . . .).  So, people noting his feeling
about LBJ's appropriation might have conflated the two incidents.

 

-----Original Message-----
From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
[mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of TheOldMole
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 2:12 PM
To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue, Auden is Acid,and
Y'all Can Go Screw

 

Hal -- he did. But that turned out to be a terrible solution.

 

Skip -- that's what I've heard, too. I'm wondering if Hitchens just pulled
this out of his ass.

----- Original Message ----- 

From: Halvard <mailto:halvard at earthlink.net>  Johnson 

To: NewPoetry: <mailto:new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>  Contemporary Poetry News
&amp; Views 

Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 11:29 AM

Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue, Auden is Acid,and
Y'all Can Go Screw

 

Then he could have fixed that by simply changing "or" to "and." 

 

Hal

 



"He's the kind of guy who can brighten

 a room by leaving it."

--Milton Berle

 

Halvard Johnson

================

halvard at gmail.com

halvard at earthlink.net

http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard

http://entropyandme.blogspot.com 

http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com

http://www.hamiltonstone.org 

 

On Mar 5, 2007, at 10:26 AM, Skip Fox wrote:





I heard he dropped the line (he was constantly revising) because he found it
untrue on the very simple level that we must die no matter what. He said
something to that effect if I remember correctly.


 

-----Original Message-----
From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
[mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of TheOldMole
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 10:22 AM
To: NewPo
Subject: [New-Poetry] Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue, Auden is Acid,and
Y'all Can Go Screw


 

Has anyone ever heard this before? >From Christopher Hitchens.


 

Another celebrated Auden line - "We must love one another or die" - was
annexed without his permission and used in Lyndon Johnson's notorious attack
ad on Barry Goldwater in 1964, showing a little girl counting petals as she
mutates into a thermonuclear countdown. The hideous scene closes with
Auden's words. He was so furious at this that he removed the poem from his
canon. He was prone to excise things that had been exploited or distorted


 


 

Tad Richards
www.opus40.org
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

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