A lengthy, sprawling poem that is two-thirds endnotes. Written by Auden during WW2, it seems to be a way for him to work out the threats and philosophies of the time, and credit where it's due, the thing taken together is enormously impressive. The endnotes are the highlight, really, if one can refer to the bulk of any text as the highlight - they jump about from quotes to extracts to more poetry, a modernist reaching for meaning. But as much as I enjoyed the sheer gumption of the scope of New Year Letter, as poetry the best part of the actual verse ends when the prologue does. That prologue is astonishingly lovely - "none / are determined like the tiny brains who found / the great communities of summer: / only on battlefields". What follows is merely clever.