I can't help but love the Waste Land, The Hollow Men, The Preludes, and a few others (no, not Prufrock really, sorry) but in general Eliot's a little too restrained / austere / what have you. Too old. He was always old, even as a young man. ( )

I'm not a great poetry authority, but I found these somewhat disappointing. My other major reference point for Eliot is his Four Quartets, which I loved. Both works are dense with allusion and require some intellectual work to unlock, but Four Quartets felt (naturally) more mature, and rewarded me more than amply for my time and attention. Perhaps the comparison put it at an unfair disadvantage, but The Waste Land, while symbolically rich, beautifully atmospheric and linguistically clever, did not seem as meaningful or coherent. I felt it demanded much and yielded too little.

My favorite part was "What the Thunder Said", which had some beautifully resonant references and lasting images. ( )

~~~On First Reading~~~

There's not much to be said about these poems on first reading. For the most part they're too cryptic to be properly understood right off the bat, with one exception being "Journey of the Magi".

"Journey of the Magi" is a monologue, assumedly from one of the famous Magi from the East who came looking for Jesus in the wake of a star. Basically (and I say this with a reserve of irony, since Eliot's poetry can hardly be described as basic) it concerns the effects, on one, of a religious experience.

The rest of the poems will have to wait on a second reading. ( )

Gotta love Eliot. Some of the weirdest, though still good, poems I've ever read. ( )

I realize I have the weight of the Lit Crit Establishment against me, but for the record I'd like to say that I've always found Eliot's poetry to be whiney and uninspiring. ( )