The Waste Land and Other Poems- T.S. Eliot
I think I was introduced to T.S. Eliot in high school, sophomore year English. There was a lot of great stuff the legendary Eric Burgess taught in that course, but I'm not completely certain this was one of them. I might've read it on my own. Or I might have the provenance wrong - maybe I read it junior or senior year. But in any case, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"* made enough of an impression on me that I went out and bought the anthology The Waste Land and Other Poems.
I'll be honest - I like Eliot** more for Prufrock and a few other poems (which may not be in the anthology - "The Hollow Men"*** and "Rhapsody on a Windy Night") than I do for "The Waste Land". I actually hated Murder in the Cathedral, though that might be a function of reading it, without a study aid, instead of watching a performance. (Shakespeare may be a possible exception to the rule that "A play read in print is guaranteed to be impossibly bad, especially compared with it performed.")
Like Remains of the Day, the speaker in Prufrock is an older man looking back on his life of missed opportunities with regret and resignation. But the phrasing Eliot uses is absolutely amazing. Everyone knows "Do I dare disturb the universe?" from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (via The Chocolate War****). But it's not limited to this - both "Not with a bang, but a whimper" from "The Hollow Men" and
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
from "Little Gidding" have been used so many times by science writers and cosmologists that NASA probably owes the entire Constellation budget to Eliot. (Though his work is largely in the public domain in the US, it's copyrighted in the EU.) If I ever get back into NASA/ESA policy, this will be the 87th question on my list of things to research.
Cherry picking cute phrases is probably the opposite of what he desired or intended. But he does have some great quotes, including off the page. There are a few delightfully cynical quotations - here are a few from Brainyquote. I actually don't know much about the poet, or about what, if any, message he wanted to communicate to his readers. Based on one quote below, he might not have cared, or had a healthy degree of cynicism about human endeavor in general, and writing poetry in particular.
As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing.
A toothache, or a violent passion, is not necessarily diminished by our knowledge of its causes, its character, its importance or insignificance.
Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.
I don't believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates.
Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm. But the harm does not interest them.
Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.
Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.
Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.
The communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
We know too much, and are convinced of too little. Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion.
Definitely worth a read, if you are so inclined to long poems and longer nights contemplating them in solitude and silence.
*During a particularly aimless period in college I decided to commit the whole thing to memory. You might not know it, though, since I must've subconsciously known that a full recitation of it in front of others would be grounds for either institutionalization or, at best, social ostracization.
**I was profoundly disappointed by the similarly-named, differently-gendered George Eliot, when I read Silas Marner in a Brit Lit class in college. If you're a fan, I'd like for you to explain what I'm supposed to get out of it. Moral awareness? Emotional catharsis? A jolly good time? I had none.
***I committed "The Hollow Men" to memory as well, this time in grad school. That's space that should've gone to remembering the equation governing an ideal plasma.
****Not on the list; I haven't even read it! *5
*5 The series of asides/footnotes did not start with the intention as a way of poking fun at his footnotes-on-footnotes style, but after so many of them I decided to state it plainly - no one, save authors of Terms of Service/Use contracts, have as much a footnote fetish as Mr. Eliot. Consider this a warning to those in early stages that prurient podiatric passions combined with a love for the language can lead to further complications.
First read in the early 2000s.
Where the Sidewalk Ends - Shel Silverstein
I will always, always treasure my copy of "Where the Sidewalk Ends". This is the book my mother would sometimes read to me as I was going to sleep. I don't know why she loved it so - I will ask her next time I speak with her. I also remember memorizing and co-delivering one of the poems, "Backward Bill", with an exchange student from Brazil, Samuel Liao. I know Sam struggled to fit in and make friends in 5th grade. I think he achieved it partly through double dodge (think Venn diagram with competing dogdeball teams in each circle). It was a good experience, and I think it strengthened our friendship. Hope you're well Sam, wherever you are..
I like it because of its ability to communicate great and wonderful ideas in very simple language. After all of the theory, all of the reading, all of the explanations about why there is conflict here, or there, it's nice to retreat - and it is a retreat - to a poem like "Hug of War" and have a handful of simple words, and a simpler illustration, make you feel like a damn human being again. Make you feel, period.
This is among the books I give to new friends who have small children. Maybe I'll start giving it out to friends, period.
First read in the mid-1980s.
The Winnie-the-Pooh series - A. A. Milne
(I'll be honest - just this once. I thought about lying, and keeping this one off the list. But I decided to add it, and leave off other, more serious/sophisticated/respectable books that, quite frankly, haven't had as big an impact on my life.)
As far as books I've re-read most frequently during my lifetime, the book Winnie-the-Pooh tops the list (possibly only because The House on Pooh Corner, the other book of stories that make up the Pooh universe, remained lost in my house for a few years, and I found stories easier to re-read than poetry, re: When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six. )
I can't say that it's a great work of literature, or that it had significant moral lessons to teach me. Maybe it was just a comfortable window into a world much like the fantasy of other little kids who thought of their stuffed animals as treasured friends.
I think I was especially fortunate that I received the version with illustrations by Ernest Shepherd. Not only did this prevent me from becoming a complete commercial drone of the Walt Disney Company, but it also provided an appreciation for simple black-and-white sketches. By supplying the eye less, it provided an opportunity for the imagination to work, to appreciate the simple, written story.
Oddly enough, I've seen few episodes of the Winnie-the-Pooh series. I'm glad this is the case.
The companion books, When We Were Very Young, and Now We Are Six, taught me both some interesting British terms (i.e., sixpence) and that poetry can be completely enjoyable and whimsical, something I have to remember when reading T.S. Eliot (also on this list).
To this day, I still don't get the joke about Winnie-ther-Pooh, versus Winnie-the-Pooh. If you can explain, I would be profoundly grateful and enjoy better sleep than I've known in years.
First read in the late 1980s.
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