One of my favourites, and one who sustained his brilliance from the beginning to the end of his work. Certainly his mature work (The Four Quartets) is among the best poetry in English literature, but he early stuff (Prufrock) isn't much worse.

"Prufrock" alone is a modernist masterpiece. . .

Eliot was undoubtedly one of the great poets of the last century-though much of his work has not aged as well as Yeats or Auden's. One of the more depressing poets. Eliot's imagery and world-view is not quite as bleak as, say, Philip Larkin's. Still, it can be hard to bear at times: "Our dried voices, when/We whisper together/Are quiet and meaningless/As wind in dry grass/Or rats' feet over broken glass..." -Eliot, The Hollow Men

dont know a thing about him but he sounds great. we should all be more like him. hes fine.

What a great poet. I enclose the following stanza from "Ash Wednesay" for your consideration: And pray to God to have mercy upon us And pray that I may forget These matters that with myself I too much discuss Too much explain Because I do not hope to turn again Let these words answer For what is done, not to be done again May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

great. wrote startling poesy and dealt with a nutsy wife, while his folks dies around him and Ezra gave him crap. got too religious later on. Wasteland is still astounding to read. let's see Billy Collins write something like that.

The wasteland sucks.. he's overrated.

He's one of my top favorites not only for his 'stays with you forever' lines, but because of what he wrote about cat's name...

The Waste Land is brilliant, as are all of his poems. He seems a little pretentious though, as if he needs to show off his complete mastery of style and word choice, as well as his command of other languages such as Greek. Oh well, he was a better poet than I or anyone else I know are ever likely to be.

Sometimes at night before I had twins and couldn't fall asleep, I recited The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock and the Hollow Men in my head. His images are haunting and the cadence of his meter is up there with Frost. His subjects are so relevent for the 20th century- lives that seem bursting with substance, but empty under the pretty shells. Peace to all of you.

I think Eliot's poetry takes more study than I've given it before it should be rated. At the same time, and this is the basis on which I've rated it, some of the lines he wrote stay with me. In a serious vein: "Where is the Life we have lost in living? / Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? / Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" are lines that speak volumes today, in this age of information (and information overload). On a lighter note, who among us cat lovers can't appreciate the thought of cat's "ineffable effable effinineffable deep and inscrutable singular name"?

Go out with a BANG and not a WHIMPER......