Poetry is often confusing when at a first glance. T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land is no different. However, during closer readings, and while thinking about it, this poem is sad and yet intriguing. One of the longest poems I’ve ever read but since it is divided into sections it becomes a little easier to think of as separate entities making up a whole. The first part of the poem reveals something interesting about the narrator – to him/her April is a month which brings back hurt memories and sadness and winter (and snow) becomes synonymous with forgetting these memories and moving, or pausing, life long enough to forget (or fake forgetting) the memories. Eliot also drops in moments where the reader is forced to think of birth and nurturing of a new life “feeding A little life with dried tubers.” However Eliot also drops in random moments of different languages, peoples actual memories and funny moments amongst the seriousness. Eliot’s reference to the “Hyacinth” girl is also interesting because in Greek mythology Hyacinthus was a mortal man loved by the Greek God Apollo who was killed which is also hinted at in the poem itself “I was neither Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,” because he was immortalized in the flower on which his blood had been spilled.

Eliot’s poem looks at different images and ideas which all appear to relate to death and rebirth, and in some cases, the state between living and death. The imagery he uses is especially striking and take the reader into a separate world with his intriguing and unique images. He adds another image of rebirth with the idea of a corpse being planted and “blooming” into something in the spring. He then switches to imagery about Cleopatra and Marc Anthony which then turns into a conversation about “nothing”. This section of the poem is interrupted by “HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME” which takes the imagery from Ancient Egypt into a typical bar closing conversation. Eliot’s ability to interlink, and jump from, two separate and completely unrelated scenes is fascinating especially since the title of his poem is The Waste Land, which brings to mind the idea that no matter where or when you are death, memories and rebirth follow. We are unable to escape from the waste land of our lives.

I stated in my Frankenstein blog post that Frankenstein was my most favourite read to date in Arts One, but The Metamorphosis and The Yellow Wallpaper is a close second. One thing that irked me while reading The Metamorphosis is the fact that we are never told exactly how and why Gregor changes into an insect. After all, people don’t transform into bugs for no reason! That aside, I liked the novella. Gregor is, in some ways, the “monster” in the novella. He’s the outsider. His family shuns and ignores him for the most part. Yet, Gregor isn’t the “in the closet” monster that jumps out and says “BOO!” or feast on innocent human beings. He’s a good monster. He’s a monster who gives unconditionally to his family. In his human life, he worked so hard so that he could pay back his parents’ debts and give his sister a better standard of living. When he is transformed into a monster, he is neglected by those he worked so hard for. Unfair? I thought so too. Even when he is transformed, he still has unconditional love for his family. He tries to hide himself whenever possible so that they are not afraid of his appearance. When he realizes, and accepts, that they can no longer look after him, he willingly dies so as to cease being a burden to his family. That’s one good “monster.” Too often, we think of monsters as evil, repulsive creatures.

The Yellow Wallpaper was a somewhat creepy read. Not “The Grudge” kind of creepy, but an eerie read nevertheless. It actually reminded me of the film Paranormal Activity, believe it or not. The “monster” is unseen in this short story, but at the end it possesses- or takes control over- the protagonist. The narrator believes she is now the woman behind the wallpaper. What happens in Paranormal Activity at the end? Katie is possessed. Micah is murdered. While John, the husband in the short story, is alive (only fainted), the fact that he’s unconscious on the floor is reminiscent of the ending to Paranormal Activity, for those who have watched the first movie. I also think that the woman, or women, behind the wallpaper, is actually a mirror reflection of the protagonist. The protagonist is confined to their rental house by her husband. She doesn’t have a confidante and she’s trapped. Is she trying to free herself as she tears the wallpaper? I think so. When people have no control over their lives and no confidants, like the protagonist, I think they turn inward and become mad. It was a very interesting read!

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.