In the 1940s John Pudney had attained some renown as a war poet. Around this time he invited the opinion of W.H. Auden about his work. This was Auden's reply:

I read your poems through a number of times. They're no use.

They're very much better than what two or three thousand young Englishmen with literary interests are doing - any living writer under 40 who is any good has written the same sort of thing - but in themselves they're quite worthless.

Don't think I despise you for writing them. Your ego has got to shed its droppings just as your intestines have to. But they have exactly the same hygenic value and no more. They're droppings and not babies.

Don't ask me what you're to do because i haven't the slightest idea. What I feel inclined to say is, chuck all this literary business. Go and do something useful, like digging the roads or organizing strikes. Forget all about yourself. Learn to say "I'm very ordinary" and one day perhaps it will come back to you. He who loses his life shall find it.

A literateur is as useless to society as a collar stud to a nude woman.
If I can ever help you in any way, let me know.

Love, Wystan Auden.

P.S. In 1960 John Pudney was the first publisher ever to accept a work of Piers for payment - a youthful folly I must admit - maybe he'd have done better to write a similar letter!

Last updated 20 July 1999

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Last updated 25.4.2003