The Auroras of Autumn by Wallace Stevens



The Auroras of Autumn is a 1950 book of poetry by Wallace Stevens. It won the 1951 National Book Award for Poetry.

It features the 1948 Stevens poem of the same name, whose title refers to the Aurora Borealis, or the "Northern Lights", in the fall.

The book collects 32 Stevens poems written between 1947 and 1950, and was his last collection before his 1954 Collected Poems.

Poems
"The Auroras of Autumn" is a 240-line poem divided into ten sections of 24 lines each. It is considered one of Stevens' more challenging and "difficult" works, and a classic example of the English Romantic tradition.

Another notable poem in the book is The Owl in the Sarcophagus, an elegy for Stevens' best friend, Henry Church.