Critics of Eliot damn his work for its difficulties - and one cannot deny that its complicated diversions into technical and structural experimentation, mythical reference and multilingual commentary do initially intimidate. The beauty of Eliot's poetry is that it grows with you. Crib notes in the margins of my original copy show how many interpretations are offered by Eliot's strange and strangely affecting verse, and how working with, and analysing, the poem over a period of time reaps rich rewards.

The timescale of work in this collection is also fascinating. Eliot's early poems, such as "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock" and "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" sow seeds of malcontent, followed by the bawdy disturbing works of Poems 1920. 'The Waste Land' is, predictably but genuinely, a great meeting point of all Eliot's talents in its depiction of despair and disenchantment, but maybe not as fine a work as 'Four Quartets' which appears towards the end of the collection - a four part work written through the mid-30s to early forties. Eliot's conversion to Christianity in the late twenties infuses his later poems, giving them a sense of faith, hope and clarity which is seldom found in his earlier works.

This is a modern classic - buy it and love it!


An "essential book" that really is essential   July 3, 2001
 5 out of 9 found this review helpful

Eliot can be annoying. I'm an emotional person, and the lack of emotions in these poems (apart from his last poem, addressed to his 2nd wife: "lovers whose bodies smell of each other...") is difficult for me. But still, you can't have everything. These are the poems of one of the most careful poets of any time. Rather than writing poems in the same way all his life he decides to change the way the poems work. The poems after 'The Waste Land', for example, make little use of the famous collage technique. What surprised me when I first read this book was how Romantic Eliot's poems are. And there are some occasional poems which are quite amusing. The range is incredible.


An essential part of an essential Modernist   December 1, 1999
 5 out of 9 found this review helpful

As the man whose artistic output (including his poems, plays, and criticism) gave a credible voice to Modernism and pulled together many of its disparate elements Eliot deserves to be read. As well as one of the greatest literary minds of the century, Eliot is also important in that the his poetry is consistently well thought out but never coldy calculated: it always remains emotive. While there are few cheery moments, the poems all show the power of the modern mind, and an ability to transform his desolate surroundings into an art form. As well as his most famous works (including the classic piece of 'desolation writing' - 'The Waste Land', and the emptiness and fear of 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock') this collected edition allows us to see the development of one of the greatest poets of this century. While the printing is up to the same very high standards of quality that we have come to expect from Faber (one of the few companies who still print on decent paper) I do wonder why there are none of his poems from 1909 to 1916, especially as they are available elsewhere. While different in style, they would complete this insight into a poet who produced work that, while changing in tone, always remained provocative and stimulating (while at times sickening and mysoginous) and consistently readable. This is poetry for life.