Eliot's The Waste Land: The Most Overrated Poem in the English Language

Eliot's poetry has found its place in the embalmed world of academia and with lovers of fatuously admired poetry.

T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land is the most overrated poem in the English language.

Thankfully, since most people don't give a damn about poetry, I think fewer people will be exposed to this fraud and his poem. Actually, that last sentence is sad (no, not just because of its clumsiness): As I posted earlier, Poetry is dead, and when you read poems like The Waste Land, it's kind of easy to see why Modernism became the punching bag for blaming the demise of poetry.

Poetry is dead; poems are not

Poetry is dead; poems are not by arsredux

Poetry is dead; poems are not.

I googled this pithy statement after having thought of it as I lay in bed one night reading. We can all agree that Poetry is dead in our era. People don't learn to recite poems nor can most adults name a living contemporary poet. I don't feel like writing much on this by now overwrought topic. It's just enough for me to concede that Poetry in our era is dead (although this is not to say it can't be revived); but poems are not.

But, I repeat, this is not to say that poems are dead. The distinction between Poetry and poems may seem silly and intentionally arcane, but it is one that holds true in my experience, and probably yours. If you can recite lyrics to a favorite song, you are proving how poems do matter; if you can recite some pithy lines from a show or movie that hold some significance and resonate in you, you are proving how poems do matter; if you can cite some lines of prose for their beauty and clarity, you are proving how poems do matter; if you can recite a poem, then obviously you are proving how poems do matter.

Poetry no longer holds a place as an accessible, open art form in our culture. But language will always be manipulated and twisted and made ugly or beautiful to express a thought, for we are humans. This is why poems are still being written today and being read by all peoples.

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I Choose Nostalgia

I Choose Nostalgia by arsredux

I googled: I choose Nostalgia, not some hackneyed inspirational word.

I know I am late to this party, but the other day I spotted Shepard Fairey's Obama Hope poster. Like most pieces of art that experience a meteoric rise, Fairey's poster has been relegated the coffers of pop-culture.

Bad Educations by Ben Wildavsky

The Wilson Quarterly: Book Reviews: Bad Educations by Ben Wildavsky

Another one of these books scrutinizing American higher education?

Yes, and this is fine. Why? Because unlike the cottage-industry of publishing books on how God does not exist or how stupid the people who believe in God are (this is the gist for a lot of these books), at least by scrutinizing higher education we can maybe, just maybe, move into a problem-solving stage in our culture regarding all things education.

One can dream, right?

I ask Google why a left turn arrow hasn't been activated even though a new traffic signal was installed a long time ago

Here's what I googled: why hasn't the left turn arrow on Soto and Washington been activated?


Don't you hate it when busy intersections lack left turn lanes and arrows? During rush hour, watching the scramble to make a left turn before the light turns completely red sometimes makes me laugh. The tacit rule is that only two cars may turn on red; usually the third car runs a greater risk of impeding traffic.

That's Racist Kid Screaming gif

When you want to skip over drivel with too much hate, or when you just don't want to read something related to racism, use this, the internet gif sensation.