Spender gave no clue about what he thought of them. Every once in a while he would interrupt his reading and seek out the author and ask such a question as, "Why did you choose red there rather than green? What does red mean to you?" He seemed to be on autopilot.
斯彭德没有露出任何想表达对这些诗的看法的蛛丝马迹，只是偶尔间断朗读，找到作者问问类似这样的问题：“为什么你选用红色而不是绿色？红色对你意味着什么？”他对这种过程驾轻就熟，如同在用自动驾驶仪一般。
It is a pity that there are no entries in Spender's journals for this precise period. But it is clear that he was leading a rich social life at the time: dinner with Jacqueline Onassis one day, the Rothschilds' at Mouton a week later— the works. My feeling was that whatever he was thinking of had little to do with this workshop. Somehow, I was getting increasingly annoyed. It was none of my business, I guess, but I had put in a long day, and I felt that Spender owed us more. I didn't know what—but more.
很遗憾斯彭德的日记中没有记载这段时期的只言片语，但是很明显他当时过着一种丰富多彩的社交生活：某日与杰奎琳·奥纳西斯一同进餐，一星期以后在缪顿的罗氏银行——手段高明。我感觉无论他怎么想都与这个讲习班无关。不知为什么，我越来越觉得恼怒。我猜这不关我的事。不过我耗费了一整天的时间，我觉得斯彭德欠了我们很多。我说不清欠的什么——反正很多。
My companion must have sensed that I was about to do something because she began writing furiously in a large notebook that she had brought along. Finally, after one particularly egregious "list," I raised my hand. Spender looked surprised, but he called on me. “Why was that a poem?” I asked. In reading his journals years later, I saw that this was a question that he had been asked by students several times and had never come up with an answer that really satisfied him. In 1935, Auden wrote an introduction for an anthology of poetry for schoolchildren in which he defined poetry as "memorable speech." That sounds good until one asks, Memorable to whom? Doesn't it matter? If not, why a workshop?
我的女友一定感觉到了我要做些什么，因为她开始在她随身带来的一个大笔记本上狂写一通。最终，在听完了一个尤其恶劣的“淸单”之后，我举起了手。斯彭德看起来有点惊讶，但还是叫了我。“那为什么也算是一首诗？”我问道。几年后读了他的日记我才发现，这是一个他已经被学生问过很多遍却从来没有想出一个令他自己满意的答案的问题。1935年，在一篇奥登为一本给小学生写的诗集做的序中，他对诗歌给出了“难忘的演讲”这样的定义。这个定义听起来还不赖，直到有人问道：对谁难忘？这很重要吗？如果不重要，为什么要弄讲习班？
I can't remember what Spender answered, but I then told him that, when I was a student, I had heard T. S. Eliot lecture.
我已经记不得当时斯彭德是怎么回答我的，但是之后我告诉他，在我还是学生的时候，我听过T.S.艾略特的讲座。