Alright, how many guys here read Prufrock aloud to a girl friend in either
high school or as an undergraduate?? Retrospectively, that poem is/was such
an odd 'turn on' - its implicit impotence, etc. But the guy, 'the
speaker'!, I recollect, had/has pretty good rhythm, an impressive resonant
sense of authority - a kind of curious, eccentric charm! (As much as
Eliot's work was made complicit with New Criticism, the poem could still
trump the anguish of learning that particular critical practice.)
Now trying to remember what poems went well with 'courtly practice.' I
suspect Miles Davis/ Gil Evans 'Round Midnight' trumped them all.
And what poems when young (or older), if I can ask, moved, so to speak,
women here.
Ah, 'poetry and practice.'
Stephen V
http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
> I first heard it read by Alec Guinness, in a programme that had Stephen
> Spender talking about Eliot by way of introduction. Spender had already
> explained the Italian before the reading began, and Guinness didn't read
> that bit.
>
> P
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to
>> poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
>> Behalf Of Jon Corelis
>> Sent: 23 February 2007 00:46
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Garrison Keillor on poets
>>
>> On encountering Prufrock as a midwestern teenager myself I
>> immediately liked it and didn't worry about the Italian,
>> which I couldn't read either, or about trying to understand
>> it. The important thing was that it sounded neat. That's
>> probably a good description of what is still my aesthetic position.
>>
>> I've always felt the full effect of Prufrock would be brought
>> out by having Boris Karloff read it.
>>
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