Daily reminder that TS Eliot wrote "The Love Song or J. Alfred Prufrock" at the age of 22

Daily reminder that TS Eliot wrote "The Love Song or J. Alfred Prufrock" at the age of 22.

How can poets these days even compete?

this is a good question. but not a productive one for actual poets to think about, unless they have already produced a good piece of poetry and have enough confidence in themselves not to be discouraged.

there's more to poetry than eliot, is all I'll say. he was good, but we wasn't anywhere near the end-all be-all or whatever.

And even if you produce just one poem that ranks up there with the best, no matter how old you are when you wrote it, that's enough.

>there's more to poetry than eliot, is all I'll say. he was good, but we wasn't anywhere near the end-all be-all or whatever.
have you read the Four Quartets, good sir??

Have you read La Jeune Parque ?

Any kindergartner who likes to rhyme.

he was a fascist.

anyone who thinks that a fascist is worth reading is probably an idiot

Modernist poetry is disgusting barbarism. "Like a patient etherised on a table", what an ugly simile.

yes I have. They are excellent. But there are other poems out there that I think are as good or better. The Duino Elegies, Darwish's long poems, Ashbery's "The System" if you wanna talk about existential angst.

I actually think The Four Quartet's is a great jumping off point for new young poets. Eliot did a beautiful job of expressing in that poem some truths and some feelings about life and death and time. But he did it in a lot of abstract language that was set in no specific place (most of the time; he does have some images here and there that are great and serve to move the poem along to its next idea). It's like he took all the specific imagery out of the wasteland and reved up its philosophical musings.

New poets should try to do what the Four Quartets did but now do it in a manner that is capable of matching and confronting the even more fragmented and chaotic energy of the post modern world, and situate the poem in the specifics of this world in addition to filling it with top notch philosophical beauty. Again, Eliot is not the end of poetry. He was a prodigy and blossomed young, but if you see poetry for what it is -- a larger and continuous life-serving project that each true poet must reinvigorate (not "advance" or "improve") in his own way and as dictated by the necessities of his time, and do so while standing on the shoulders of those who came before him -- then that's nothing to be intimidated by.

>not exclusively reading fascists

I think I went to high school with her, jesus christ

quality post
I was just being hyperbolic because I really really like the Four Quartets

MUH GREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKS

prufrock sounds like a niche genre /mu/ would like

I feel like this poem is what poetry should be about, it's a very enjoyable poem, with a good rhythm. It's fun to lead but the lines are also very hard hitting emotionally and relatable. It was a time when poets weren't afraid to have their poems rhyme or form beautiful couplets.

>must reinvigorate (not "advance" or "improve"

amen, someone with some sense about poetry bless you, fellow human

what makes that poem so good? where does the appreciation for it come from? is he writing in a meter? is it hard to do that? why is this such a classic?

>Mein Kampf is a 30-page chapbook

I don't like TS Eliot. His aesthetic is so ugly

I want you to know that this made me laugh.

Fascism is best ism.

who?

not sure if this is bait, but this is pretty much the attitude of the current literary establishment. whether it's creative writing or literary criticism, your work must play into neoliberal id politics to get published

also eliot wasn't a fascist. more of a christian traditionalist

I would not describe the current literary establishment as neoliberal, they're more left than that.

t. neoliberal

The current literary envioremt is super PC and identity-politics-fixated. It's unhealthy and neutered. In the U.S. at least, I mean. It's a circle jerk.

they're hardly leftist in any traditional sense of the word (i.e. anti-capitalist, class-oriented). the people who read toni morrison and ta-nehisi coates are professional-managerial types in major metropolitan areas.