Letter: Auden

I have no interest in getting on the moral bandwagon in literary morals but as the Literary Editor of the Salient in 1969 I feel that I have some interest in the future of Salient's centre page.

The role of student journalism, and in particular the role of a poetry or literary editor, is to propagate as high a quality of poetry and criticism as possible. This is not necessarily to publish what is always good poetry but what is at least of some assistance in evaluation of poetry. With this task there is the need to be very careful about one's motives to avoid charges of either sensationalism or lack of artistic merit or understanding.

Firstly, from the point of view of the poem "A Day for a Lay" the poem is very uneven in quality and is generally lacking in both the unity and subtlety which characterises Auden's best work. There is little to be gained by publishing a poem which gives us very little idea of the poet's true development in stature. The poem itself is of interest to those who are specially interested in Auden but apart from that has very little inherent value.

Secondly, Salient has by publishing a poem of this limited merit exposed itself to the charge I mentioned earlier. I can think of no reason why this poem was published except for the purpose of sensationalism and vulgar curiosity. I cannot believe that those who publish this poem did so out of academic interest. What you have in fact achieved is to lower the standing of Salient as a student paper and to prostitute the centre page for something that it was never intended.