Stop All the Clocks by W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone . . .

W. H. Auden was the consummate poet of love and heartbreak. Stop All the Clocks presents a selection of his best known, most lucid poems, poems that pitch human frailty against a persisting desire for love and belonging.

Here are the anxieties that beset our waking and sleeping hours: the delirium of desire, the torture of unrequited love, the trauma of loss and displacement. And here, in these resonant, dazzling poems, is the understanding we might be looking for.

‘W. H. Auden had the greatest gifts of any of our poets in the twentieth century.’ James Fenton, New York Review of Books

Poetry to reach for in times of turmoil

About the Author: W. H. Auden was born in York in 1907. His first full-length collection, Poems, was published by T. S. Eliot at Faber and Faber in 1930. The many volumes he published thereafter included poetry, plays, essays and libretti, and his ceaseless experimentation, consummate craftsmanship and originality established him as one of the most influential poets of the twentieth century. He died in 1973.

20 Nov 2025
 

Stop All the Clocks: Poems of Love and Loss by W.H. Auden ISBN 9780571396825