{"id":928,"date":"2009-04-02T20:38:44","date_gmt":"2009-04-03T03:38:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/?p=928"},"modified":"2009-04-04T21:13:37","modified_gmt":"2009-04-05T04:13:37","slug":"poem-2-the-waste-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/02\/poem-2-the-waste-land\/","title":{"rendered":"Poem 2: The Waste Land<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Because of the opening lines below, the other poem that everyone expects to hear at the beginning of April is T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
\nLilacs out of the dead land, mixing
\nMemory and desire, stirring
\nDull roots with spring rain. (I., 1–4)<\/p>\n

It’s been dark and rainy all day here.  I had to ford a huge puddle, cursing myself for wearing the Crocs with the holes on the sides, just so that I could drag the garbage can back from the street.<\/p>\n

The forsythia in the yard is making a showy splash of yellow,  I really should take some pictures of that forsythia, but I digress. Not even the thousands of little yellow flowers can brighten up all the dark, rain-soaked twigs and leaves that lie about, having lost the battle to a recent wind storm. The yard here is as much a waste land as any Eliot might journeyed.<\/p>\n

It’s been more than a decade since I’ve studied The Waste Land<\/em> as a real reader. All my notes and research are still in Illinois, so I can’t even pull them out. Once I could read the lines and round up all the connections in my thoughts, but it’s been too long. The poem is a mass of allusions and biographies and mythologies that I have to check. I wish so much that I could grab my copy of The Golden Bough<\/em> and my facsimile of the edited manuscript with Pound’s editorial notes. But none of that is within reach.<\/p>\n

If I tell truth, at this moment, the poem is lost for me. I can’t read it as a knowledgeable reader. I can’t read it with the joy I once could. That fact breaks my heart. There are so many pieces of literature I laid aside in the past 15 years that I want to spend time with, that I miss.<\/p>\n

Yet some essence of the poem has always stayed with me. Eliot speaks to some deep inner place in my soul, though The Waste Land<\/em> is not my favorite of his poems. I’ll share that another day. For me, I think The Waste Land<\/em>, moreso than, say, "Prufrock<\/a>," represents modern poetry. While I’m a medievalist at heart, the poet in my soul wants to be a modernist. I’ve tried my hand at poetry, but all I muster are soulless heavy lines and "A heap of broken images" (I., 22). April does seem a cruel month at times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Because of the opening lines below, the other poem that everyone expects to hear at the beginning of April is T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land: APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. (I., 1–4) It’s been dark and rainy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,26,14],"tags":[20,21],"class_list":["post-928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american","category-british-literature","category-poetry","tag-eliot","tag-waste-land"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqzI8-eY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=928"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":943,"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928\/revisions\/943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}