Tag Archives: Waste Land

A Poem for When You’re Feeling Weary

By Robin Bates | Published: April 4, 2024

Swinburne’s “Garden of Proserpine,” a good poem for when you’re feeling fed up with life.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Garden of Proserpine", "Lotus Eaters", Alfred Lord Tennyson, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Depression, Sigmund Freud, T. S. Eliot | Comments closed

T.S. Eliot Meets Groundhog Day

By Robin Bates | Published: February 1, 2024

If the groundhog sees its shadow today, will it fall into existential despair?–which is Eliot’s response to shadows in “The Waste Land.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Hollow Men", Bill Murray, existential despair, Groundhog Day, T. S. Eliot, Winter | Comments closed

When Bicycling, Marvels Coast By

By Robin Bates | Published: August 10, 2023

Two weeks of cycling in Madison have brought me to this William Stafford poem.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Maybe Alone on My Bike", "To His Coy Mistress", Andrew Marvell, Bicycles, cycling, Madison WI, T.S. Eliot, William Stafford | Comments closed

Cormorant Delivers Pentecostal Message

By Robin Bates | Published: May 27, 2023

When it comes to hearing the Holy Spirit, Derek Walcott finds it easier in Trinidad than in Boston.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Pentecost", Caribbean, Derek Walcott, Pentecost, T.S. Eliot | Comments closed

Empire of Light, Filled with Poetry

By Robin Bates | Published: April 27, 2023

The film “Empire of Light” is magical in part because of all the poetry recited.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Death's Echo", "Trees", Alfred Lord Tennyson, Ali Fears Eats the Soul, Chariots of Fire, cinema, Empire of Light, In Memoriam, Philip Larkin, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, T.S. Eliot, W. H. Auden | Comments closed

Eliot’s Search for Hope in Dry Bones

By Robin Bates | Published: March 25, 2023

T.S. Eliot conveys his spiritual desolation in “Waste Land” with references to Ezekiel’s dry bones. But, in the end, there’s a faint sign of hope.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Ezekiel, spiritual regeneration, T.S. Eliot, valley of dry bones | Comments closed

Recovering a Child’s Sense of Wonder

By Robin Bates | Published: December 18, 2021

In this Christmas tree poem, T.S. Eliot seeks to reconnect with his childhood sense of wonder.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Cultivation of Christmas Trees", Advent, Christmas, Christmas trees, St. Lucy, T. S. Eliot | Comments closed

Valley of Dry Bounds, a Waste Land

By Robin Bates | Published: March 28, 2020

Spiritual Sunday As we are in the Lenten season, the liturgy has of reading one of the strangest passages in the Bible, that being Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones. I repost today an essay from April 6, 2016 on T. S. Eliot’s allusion to the imagery. Given how desolate many of us are feeling these […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Ezekiel, T. S. Eliot, valley of the dry bones | Comments closed

Lent: The Air Heavy and Thick

By Robin Bates | Published: March 9, 2019

Spiritual Sunday I share today a good Lenten poem by Denise Levertov where the poet finds herself in a funk, albeit not a dramatic funk. She’s experiencing neither a “dark night of the soul” nor a scorching wasteland desert, those extreme moments of crisis that have pushed people to revelation. (Today’s Gospel reading is Jesus’s […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Hound of Heaven", "Oblique Prayer", Denise Levertov, Francis Thompson, Lent, Mary Oliver, T. S. Eliot | Comments closed