So going into today’s seminar, to be honest here.. I didn’t really have a good grasp at all on this poem. Not saying that my understanding of it is amazing or anything, but I mean, it definitely improved upon talking about it with all of you. Jon said that this would probably be the hardest not-philosophical text we would come across in this course— and I understand why. For starters, maybe I wasn’t really focused, but I found that it was hard to follow along with what the story of the poem. It seemed kind of scattered to me and really confusing. (In high school, analyzing poetry wasn’t really my forte, so doing this one was a bit of a task for me).  This was a read that I needed to take my time with on some lines (well, more than a few) and go over until I could finally comprehend it.

With Waste Land, asides finding it a bit of a more challenging read, I thought that the inputs of phrases in different languages made following the story that much harder. Lines like, “Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.” Thoroughly threw me off guard.. but I think that maybe Eliot added those in there to emphasize the language barriers. How perhaps we will never really be able to fully understand one another, or the difficulty in doing so, due to these cultural differences, or maybe he did it to emphasize his German roots? I don’t really know, so these are really all just thoughts going through my head. I also found that the poem didn’t follow a set rhythm or pattern of any sort. It was a bit scattered and varied, which I assume was to emphasize more parts in comparison to others, depending on the scenario.

What I can say, however, is that in spite of the challenge (which is something I feel like I placed emphasis on pretty well), when I finally did understand and manage to follow the story, I quite enjoyed it. I particularly found Part II. A Game Of Chess to be most interesting to me. How the woman was fixated on getting herself a set of false teeth as a means of pleasing her husband and ensuring that he doesn’t go looking for other women. I found this to be of interest to me, because of the story no doubt, but also because of the interruptions of the bartender. I liked how it didn’t follow an organized, usual structure of a poem, and thought that it was an alternative take and a refreshing twist to writing.

Anyways, overall, Eliot was better than I expected. Can’t wait to hear more thoughts!

At first I thought I had already read this piece and it turns out that I had not. I particularly have a fond of satirical poems type things and other poems, this poem, The Wasteland, is definitely not genre I have ever read before. Wow, is this poem ever different and I thought I was difficult to understand. I have to say at first I laughed upon reading the poem. I was confused and as I am personally a see what you get kind of person I did not know what to make of it. I will definitely have to pick up a copy of the book for the footnotes and that stuff. My favourite part of the poem is in section 1 and 3. My first favourite is the lines 43-59 around. That stanza I personally enjoy superstition and fortunes. The imagery of that stanza is fun and exciting. My second favourite is the part about Mrs. Porter and her daughter washing their feet in soda water. It really has nothing to do with anything the reason I enjoy it, other than the fact that it reminds me of my mom and I in Bali and Indonesia in ocean. (My mother is known as Mrs. Porter to some).
Stay tuned for more. To come after my lecture in another class. Hope the lecture will be good, wish I could go sounds like lots of interesting things to talk about!

When I opened up the poem and looked at the first line, I was immediately thrown back to grade 12. Not because I’d read it before, but because in my writer’s craft class the teacher used to give us prompts to begin writing something at the beginning of most classes. One of these prompts was “April is the cruellest month…”. I don’t even remember what I wrote to follow it anymore, but I’m sure it’s still somewhere at home, on a scrap piece of paper buried under piles of notes. I almost wish I could go find it now, but I guess I’ll just have to wait until the summer, if I remember that long. I feel like my teacher may have mentioned it was the first line to a famous poem, but I had never heard of it before so it didn’t register. Now I’m stuck with a feeling of nostalgia for a poem I recently read for the first time, and a curiosity that can’t be solved at the moment. It’s odd though, how much the memories that first line brought about impacted how I read the poem. I had a sense of fondness all throughout, and it felt like a secret was being revealed, the secret of what’s meant to follow “April is the cruellest month”.

This poem was certainly tricky to navigate, and not easy to understand at first glance. But then again, as mentioned in the seminar today, maybe poetry isn’t meant to be “understood”. A poem is not a vault of secrets that can be opened by a select few with the right perspective. Or maybe it is? Did Eliot have something specific he wanted each reader to take away from this poem? The thing with poetry is it’s open to interpretation, and frequently means something different to every person. The teacher previously mentioned once gave a group a bad mark on a presentation for “interpreting the poem wrong”. We, of course, were all up in a fuss about this, as the idea that one can interpret a piece of art the “wrong way” just seems ridiculous. Perhaps it’s not that poetry has no meaning, but in fact has too much meaning. I’m sure we all connected differently with different passages. For example, lines 315-318 are some of my favourites, along with the first stanza.

Secret meaning or not, it’s certainly a beautiful poem. Looking forward to the lecture, see you all there!

T.S. Eliott’s Wasteland was confusing.  All those imagery pretty much filled my senses like, as Kevin said, a minature movie reel playing.  Wait.. HOLD THAT THOUGHT…

If it’s a Wasteland, it’s certainly not a poetical or a wasteland that’s not vibrant.  Instead, what we’ve gotten from Eliot is a very rich and varied description of his wasteland, sometimes I could just taste the spring air.  There is actually an incredible amount of tactile, audiosensory imagery that is available for the reader of The Wasteland.  Kind of strange, the effort that Eliott put into describing his Wasteland, makes it NOT a wasteland in terms of senses, it delights our senses in fact, twists and turns, drawing our attention and leading us to focus on certain places and words.  This makes us feel not a wasteland of emotions, but forces us to feel…

Not to mention the allusions, which I found, confusing, but delightful for an admirer of history.  To see all those lines from various works of literature, intermingled with Eliot’s personal references is not just amusing, but it creates an incredible amount of intricacy within the work.

So, for a Wasteland, Eliot’s poem is actually quite a goldmine of imagery… seems a Wasteland can be full of beauty…

Warning: This post contains spoilers for the movie “World’s Greatest Dad”.

I think I’ll get this off my chest first – I’ve never been a fan of poetry. What I am about to explain about that could be attributed to any other form of expression too I assume – music, movies, novels – but personally I find it troubling in poetry. The definition of poetry (as offered by dictionary.com…) is “the art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts.”.

Perhaps it was because I had just come back from my third viewing of “World’s Greatest Dad”, a masterpiece of cinema most likely sold short due to the name. It seems like no coincidence that I watched this film whilst we study this poem – both retain the focus on the sterility of modern culture. However, where the format becomes interesting is in distinguishing the different formats of both these art forms – one shows it wit with nonsensical sounds, while another shows its wit in satirical dialogue with masterful timing. These are both very dark pieces, and I am sure T.S. Eliot’s work at one point or another inspired critically acclaimed director and actor Bobcat Goldthwait.

There are an absolute plethora of comparisons you can make between the poem and Goldthwait’s movie; take the symbolism for water for instance. Its ability to bring about rebirth is just as relevant to its ability to bring death in Eliot’s poem, as it is for the monumental third act in which the protagonist Lance Clayton dives into the pool to start a new and accept the death of his son.

But besides all those obvious references (even though they are extremely important to a filmmaker as myself), I’d have to say I enjoyed The Waste Land. I really don’t like the format of poetry though; very rarely do I find it has a hook, and for those who say you get more out of it on an additional read – I’ll have to agree. However, I think if it was written in a different style, you would be able to get across many more themes of the text the first time around whilst keeping the readers attention.

The first time reading through this, I was curious to read all the footnotes (regardless of reading Kevin’s blog just before hand) because I found them interesting in themselves, and at times useful. Let’s just say that I’m really grateful for my English lit 12 class. However, I was considerably confused at some of Eliot’s transitions and connections; he appeared to flit about suddenly and randomly at times, leaving me still questioning the previous section but there was no answer. But I suppose that is poetry for T.S. Eliot.

After the second time reading this though, I enjoyed the feeling of Eliot creating circles of connections in each segment of the poem. There is the overarching theme of showing a barren emotional wasteland in a city that is portrayed as being magnificent. England and London are usually portrayed in two lights: the established, dignified and what-is-thought-to-bring-you-happiness (wealth, security, companionship), and then the poor, dirty, primitive, “slums” of British society.  I find connecting strangers through their individual stories that all share a common aspect intriguing. Here, I read the poem as connecting all of the different stories, books, plays, etc. that Eliot was alluding to, along with stories that were existing in the everyday life around him. I did find it interesting that a fair amount of the poem was centered around the everyday objects found in both elements of British society, along with women. While he takes time and words to describe innate objects such as a chair “held up by standards”(line 79), he shows intimate moments of women’s lives in brief but descriptive depictions. Why is this important? I don’t know, but it is interesting to see the woman who is “hardly aware of her departed lover; allows one half-formed thought to pass: “Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.” (lines 251-2) Here a circle is formed: she is stuck in winter. Winter being a place where things can be forgotten and left behind; a mentality that allows for people to be in a situation they don’t want to be in, and survive.  Neither her, nor the “lover”, nor the society that Eliot sees around him, is really living if they are in a place of forgetting what happened in the past, along with everyday life.

So, those are some thoughts from before the seminar today. Can’t say that I really see humor in this poem just yet, but thanks for a new idea of how to look at this, Jon.

Honestly this poem was extremely frustrating to read, and I’m sure others in our class agree. I found it interesting that he included allusions from many other sources in order to create something very new and personal, but at the same time the story itself jumped around from narrator to narrator and location to location, making it difficult to follow. After reading each section for the first time, I felt confused and lost. But after reading the sections again I was able to grasp the ideas a little bit better. I look forward to the seminar tonight as well as the discussion on Thursday in order to hear everyone’s thoughts on the poem.

I truly love rap and hip hop music, and I consider (certain) rappers to be incredibly talented poets. The best rappers are able to evoke emotions from their listeners, and share their personal stories, generally within a concise 16 bar per verse structure. And the truly great rappers are able to do all of this while demonstrating a smooth flow, matching their rhymes to fit the pockets of the beat that they are rhyming over, and setting themselves apart from the other rappers out there by having their own personal style and cadence. I love this type of musical poetry with a passion, but unfortunately I don’t feel the same way about poetry in general. I enjoy the artistic and creative aspect of it, but compared to poems that are laid over musical backgrounds, it just doesn’t compare to me.

I didn’t enjoy this poem very much because I felt like it was too difficult to relate to in any way, and I will continue to stick to the likes of The Notorious B.I.G. and Kendrick Lamar when I’m in need of a poetry fix.