Poetry News

Read Eliot. It’s the law.

By Harriet Staff

The Careerist, a blog for lawyers, suggests various tips for summer’s end: Don’t bring your Blackberry to the beach. Have some lobster. And read some poetry. The blogger suggests, in particular, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” which she calls “startlingly beautiful,” and summarizes as follows:

In a nutshell, it’s the musings of a middle-aged man who’s trapped in an inglorious life. I think T.S. Eliot might have written it with a lawyer in mind.

And perhaps he wrote it with the end of summer in mind, too:

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

Or the end of everything:

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Happy Labor Day, lawyers!

Posted in Poetry News on Friday, September 3rd, 2010 by Harriet Staff.