English political poet Sir Stephen Spender (1909-1995) was known not only for his literary accomplishments but also for his literary aquaintences. While at Oxford he befriended poets W.H. Auden and C. Day-Lewis. In a Salon review of David Leeming's book, "Stephen Spender: A Life in Modernism," Jaime Manrique describes Virginia Woolf and T.S. Eliot as Spender's "surrogate parents." His extensive collection of work included "World Within World" and "The Temple."
In this interview by Dick Cavett, courtesy of the Paris Review, Stephen Spender talks about his brief involvement with the Communist Party, poetry and the cinema.
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