The following is an excerpt from Andy Nowicki's new book Notes Before Death: Three Essays
, now available on Amazon. Hear Andy read "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," the poem discussed in this excerpt.  |
| "I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each I do not think that they will sing to me." |
by Andy Nowicki
Today, viewed from the perspective of a middle-aged English teacher, whose hair, like Prufrock's, is growing thin, I still find myself most captivated by Eliot's earliest work. As for "The Four Quartets," written later in Eliot's life and long after his conversion to Anglo-Catholicism, they leave me cold. There is something about them that is too airy-fairy, too abstract. "The Waste Land," Eliot's most celebrated poem, has its moments of power, but I can't make head of tail out of much of it, and really, couldn't he have cut back on the abstruse literary allusions just a touch? (Those who call Eliot a pedant are no doubt mostly prejudiced against him for his political and social views, but honestly, the guy could lay on the references and footnotes a bit thick at times.)
