"You're a good writer," the poetry professor says as he's looking over my paper on "The Waste Land" and "Second Coming." He's smiling this smile he usually wears. He seems to genuinely enjoy being a community college professor (according to my COMM professor, the pay is better at the community college as opposed to the University).
He tells me that he looks forward to reading my poem ("Hospital's Hallway"), and that he appreciates my participation in class. The poetry professor never mentioned our debate on prostitution, and I didn't mention it either.
He's grown on me, in the beginning of the class, I didn't know if I would like him. Despite the fact that the class is on poetry, the poetry professor isn't afraid to dive into social and cultural issues; he's particularly sensitive to feminist topics. "That's how I make it relevant," he explains to me. He admits that even he doesn't read poetry on his own, outside of class. He explains that the death of poetry was caused by writers like Eliot, who refuse to find material that is relatable to its audience. In "The Waste Land," there is a message that is common to us all: our spiritual barrenness in a post-WWI world (just wait, Eliot! There's WWII), and in modern Industrial Revolution and by consequence, materialism. But does his typical, average, every day man see that message? Well--
But at the same time, even though we don't think uneducated people can understand "The Waste Land," we also naturally dismiss this concern and call it great literature, a classic in fact.
As writers, perhaps we are charged with being one step (or two or three) ahead of our readers, to give them cause for pause.
What is obvious in "The Waste Land," and I should somehow include this in my paper, is the fact that Eliot was insecure about either his dick size or his ability to attract a woman or both. He finds that women scorn him--but why?
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