Last year, it was the centenary of the birth of former Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman. This year, it is the turn of his Oxford contemporary W.H. Auden, who would have been 100 on February 21.

Auden became an Honorary Student of Christ Church in 1961, and lived in a cottage in the grounds until his death in 1973. A portrait of him hangs in the college dining hall.

Auden's poetry has never gone out of fashion and he hit new heights of popularity in 1994 when his poem, Funeral Blues, was used in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral. The 9/11 terrorist attack on New York in 2001 prompted a revival of Auden's poem September 1, 1939.

The Bodleian Library is marking the centenary with a display compiled by curator Dr Judith Priestman illustrating the poet's links with Oxford. The library's literary landmarks include Auden's first poem, which he wrote in a notebook for his mother, and a rare copy of his first collection of verse, entitled simply Poems.

A new edition of Auden's Collected Poems (Faber, £30), released for the centenary, runs to 900 pages, but is surprisingly compact. In a new preface, editor Edward Mendelson offers a critical appreciation of Auden.

A perfect companion volume is WH Auden: A Commentary by John Fuller (Faber, £22.50). Available for the first time in paperback, this is not designed to be read for entertainment.

It's a careful reference work dealing with all of Auden's writings, but it provides invaluable help with the poet's most complex verse. Who, for example, would know now that a "dog's nose", mentioned in the light-hearted love song Jam Tart, is a drink of gin and beer?

The Auden exhibition at the Bodleian Library in Broad Street runs until March 24.

On March 20, Simon Callow, John Fuller and Andrew Motion will celebrate the poet's life as part of the Oxford Literary Festival, at the Bodleian Library's Divinity School at 6pm.