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"Refugee Blues" is a timely and important poem that sheds light on the plight of refugees. It is a powerful reminder of the human cost of war and persecution, and it serves as a call to action for those who are able to offer assistance to those in need.
- Summary
- Themes
- Structure
- Literary Devices
- Analysis, Stanza by Stanza
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The speakerbegins this poem by suggesting that there are 10 million people in “this city”. He tells the listener, someone, he loves, that despite this there is nowhere for them to live. He reminisces on the past, the life they used to have, and the safety of their old home. But, things have changed and new demands and policies made by Nazi Germany ...
There are several important themes that a reader should consider in‘Refugee Blues’. These include anti-semitism, isolation/loneliness, and exile. The first, anti-semitism, is one of the factors in this poem that results in the other themes. It is due to the policies of Nazi Germany that the speaker in this poem and his family were forced to flee th...
‘Refugee Blues’ by W.H. Auden is a twelve stanza poem that is separated into sets of three lines, known as tercets. These tercets follow a simple rhyme scheme of AAB. It is interesting to consider what this particular pattern does to the way a reader understands the poem. The first two lines are paired together, creating a perfect rhyme. But, the t...
Auden makes use of several literary devices in ‘Refugee Blues’. These include but are not limited to repetition, allusion, and caesura. The latter, caesura, occurs when a line is split in half, sometimes with punctuation, sometimes not. The use of punctuation in these moments creates a very intentional pause in the text. A reader should consider ho...
Stanza One
In the first stanza of ‘Refugee Blues,’ the speaker begins by painting a picture of a city. This place, somewhere in Germany, is large. It’s filled with people, some of whom live in mansions and some in holes. This image depicts for the reader the enormous wealth disparity that existed in his home. But, despite this range of homes, there is nowhere “for us,” he says. The speaker and his family are German Jews, trying to figure out where they will be safe as Nazism and wider spread anti-semiti...
Stanza Two
In the second stanza of ‘Refugee Blues,’ the speaker adds that “Once” he and his family, as well as his people, had a home. It was a place they could call their own. One could look in an atlas and find it there. It was a physical location, not just a metaphorical one. But as has already become clear by this point they can’t go back there. The phrase “We cannot go there now” is repeatedin the last line of this stanza. This same technique is used in the following stanzas as well, adding to the...
Stanzas Three and Four
The speaker recalls, through a powerful memory, the sight of a yew tree that grows in a churchyard. It’s something that he’s very familiar with but that now he’s entirely separate from. It “blossoms anew” each year without fail. But, he adds, “Old passports” don’t have that same ability. This alludes again to the inability to go home and the way that they’ve been effectively exiled from their own lives. Everything they thought belonged to them, including their citizenship, is lost. The next s...
A poem that describes the plight of German Jews fleeing from Nazi Germany in 1939. The speaker uses repetition, allusion, and caesura to express his loneliness, isolation, and exile in a city with no place for them.
- Female
- October 9, 1995
- Poetry Analyst And Editor
A poem by W. H. Auden that depicts the plight of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939. The poem uses various poetic devices and symbols to express the themes of antisemitism, exile, and isolation.
In this poem Auden uses as a template the blues tradition, which developed in Black communities in the United States and has its origins in slave songs. Though composed through improvisation, the...
The poem comments on the condition of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany in the years before World War II, especially the indifference and antagonism they faced when seeking asylum in the democracies of the period. [1]
Read the full text of 'Refugee Blues', a powerful poem by W.H. Auden that expresses the despair and alienation of refugees. Learn about the poet, the poetic technique and the themes of the poem.
A Jewish refugee in New York laments his plight and the indifference of the city in this poem from 1939. The poem is part of a cycle of 'Ten Songs' and has a musical quality and a bitter irony.
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