The Waste Land and other poems

This book by T. S. Eliot was a pleasant surprise. If you're a regular reader you may recall during my post about Rupi Kaur I somewhat dismissively used Eliot as the counter-example of a poet whose work was purportedly and academically excellent but somewhat dry and lifeless when actually imbibed, and I admit here and now that I wrote that without actually having read any of Eliot's work at least since GCSE Poetry Anthology days - if even then! And so it was, that with trepidation and intrigue, I bought this for 79p in Oxfam and read it in a couple of sittings - and whewf.

   The titular poem itself is fairly impenetrable but also gives you far more to work with as a reader than I was expecting. I don't actually know what I was expecting - but whatever it was, the actual poem is far shorter and actually pretty powerful stuff, if admittedly I would have found it somewhat inaccessible had I not committed so much time on this blog to mystical theology and comparative religion... Anyway, that said, The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock is just saddening, a bleakly accurate portrait of postwar romanticism well-bridged into the modernist era. Ash Wednesday and the Two Choruses from 'The Rock' however were deeply powerful, and I saw as for the first time that Eliot's struggle as a poet was far higher-minded and nobler than the mere academical muddyfooting that I'd previously shunted it down as, and religious ideals shine through gaps between the lines in these two poems particularly with a light and resonance that I think is truly powerful and would speak to many people who may not even like poetry at all. Religious readers will, I wager, find much of inspiration here as Eliot responds to the grim, industrial choke-points of secular 20th-centuryism.

   Aside from the traditionally contemporary gripe that in a couple of places he'll quote something in Latin or Greek without offering a translation in the footnotes, I actually really enjoyed this book and imagine it will be another one for the semi-regular poetic rereading as I grow in my own capacities and voice as a writer. Definitely go for this one if you're new to Eliot - at least this of his books hasn't had The Ultimate Furry-Friendly Musical based on it as with one of his other publications.