The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot Review

So here I go again on my own (goin’ down the only road I’ve ever knoooown) personal annual humiliation ritual where I read some poetry to see if I get it yet - it’s a new year and, nope, still don’t “get” poetry!

Consider The Waste Land by TS Eliot, maybe the most famous poem of the 20th century, published between the wars in 1922. I recognised the opening line: “April is the cruellest month” (why is it cruel?), “I will show you fear in a handful of dust”, and the occasional phrase (from book titles - “Consider Phlebas” was an Iain M. Banks sci-fi novel and “Over the tumbled graves” was a similarly titled Jess Walter crime novel). So was I picking up what Eliot was putting down? You get your sweet bippy I wasn’t!

Some fans of poetry will tell you that poems aren’t puzzles to be figured out and I say that some definitely are - and The Waste Land is one of them. What I should’ve done was find an annotated copy - “the spoon-fed edition” - preferably one with the text printed on one side and commentary from someone in the know on the other. Translations would’ve helped too - I don’t speak German, French, Latin, and whatever other untranslated languages are included here, so perhaps have these in English too for plebs like me gawking at the words in bafflement?

Eliot’s notes are included at the end and are anything but illuminating. I know now from reading them that the poem is full of classical allusions and references to many works of literature - but why? What’s the significance? What’s the poem driving at - what am I meant to be feeling or thinking? Because the only state I was in was one of perpetual confusion, my default state when attempting to read poetry.

I did what I think I’m meant to do with poetry which was just read it and try to enjoy it, and I didn’t get anything out of it. When exalted poetry like this is so incomprehensible, it’s obvious why poetry is so niche - if you make your art form wholly inaccessible to all but those who are willing to, effectively, spend hours and hours studying adjoining academic texts to prise free whatever meaning is hidden away here, you’re not going to get many takers.

I read it at least but I surmise The Waste Land is wasted on readers like me.