"Refugee Blues" is a poem by W.H. Auden that takes on the voice of a German Jewish refugee in the 1930s speaking to a companion about their desperate situation. The speaker explores the many obstacles that "you and me" face, and considers how animals and other parts of nature have much greater freedom of movement than refugees. The poem ends with a sense of fear, as the speaker recognizes that the soldiers are searching for people like them.
Key Aspects of Refugee Blues
Tone
The poem's tone is breezy, wry, almost casual, in stark and ironic contrast to its content.
Setting
The poem has no one particular setting, but seems to reflect the general time and place of Europe in the 1930s.
