In a recent podcast Paul Vander Klay interviewed three men who have organized the conference Convivium 2023: Poetry as Perception, to be held the weekend of November 17 and 18 in Hector, Arkansas. The down-to-earth approach of these men, to make poetry an accessible part of everyday life, is exemplified by the “About” page that describes the men simply as a priest, a cardiologist, and an earth mover.
In the comments to PVK’s podcast I learned that Jeremy Irons has read the complete poetry of T.S. Eliot. The recordings are in five parts that are also the chronological order that Eliot wrote them (note that the audio of Parts Three and Four are interchanged). I know next to nothing about poetry, but for me listening makes it much more accessible. So I write here in the spirit of the event organizers, to give a non-expert, everyman assessment of Eliot’s poetry.
Listening (and reading along) to the complete works is like following a poetic journal of the passage of Eliot from modern ironic alienation, loneliness, and sadness; in effect the poetic description of the meaning crisis, that culminates in Part Three: The Wasteland. There is much on the frivolous triviality of his contemporaries without regard to the potential for redemption and graciousness in those same people. For example, Eliot dissects the meaningless existence of the very busy people who scurry to nowhere in this excerpt from The Wasteland,
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