In scrutinizing WH Auden’s September 1, 1939, Ian Sansom borrows two questions recommended by Auden himself for the study of a poem: ‘How does it work? And what kind of guy inhabits this poem?’ Sansom argues that this work offers a glimpse of the writer reinventing himself at a culminating moment in world affairs, and seeks to show why this poem is a masterpiece and how it has been incorporated into people’s lives.