Louis MacNeice belonged to a generation of authors and poets called the Auden Group after the group's most well-known member, W. H. Auden. Though his contemporaries were avid political writers, Louis preferred a slower, more balanced tone that seemed to relax readers and lull them into long, reasonable discussions about life, ethics, and yes, some politics.
Poems is an early collection from 1935, published when Louis was only 28. It was published during MacNeice's time in Birmingham. Even as a young person, he had plenty of fodder for poetry, including the untimely death of his troubled mother and his separation from his brother who suffered from Down's syndrome.
The poetry was admittedly passionate, and MacNeice published the collection during a time in his young marriage to his wife, Mariette, when he wasn't sure whether he could continue to write poetry. After all, the subjects of his poetry are anti-authoritarian and free-spirited, obviously resistant to the forces of obligation and marriage. He feared that his writings would upset his wife, and so he wrote a couple mediocre novels before finally publishing Poems in 1935, finally establishing himself as a new writer.
