“Modernist movement... blast manifesto... Eliot would not be enlisted... innovations, masking, neo-classical, remaking of other’s poems... technical wizardry... preeminent poet of suffereing... epic journey... haunting clarity... dislocation... mystic wholeness...Thomas Stearns Eliot... born 1885, in St. Louis... state of Missouri... (home of another great writer, William S. Burroughs)... family was full of clergy and teachers... He went to Harvard in 1906... taught school in London... became a clerk in a bank... 1915... Vivienne Haywood... married... breakdown... 1920s ‘Wasteland’... Paris... Pound... editing... 1925... editor, director at publishers ‘Faber and Faber’... British subject... 1948 Nobel Prize... 1950s best known poet... 1964 died of emphysema... married again... Valerie Eliot... happy marriage... plays... just listen to... voice from the depths of struggle... uses classical forms... long poems... assemblage of lyrics... or tightly united?”

He’s lookin round but none here is prepared to answer his question. Dey all jus fallin asleep to de lull of his voice.

“Ahmm... ‘Prufrock’... musical echoes... sounds... reverberations... poet of emotion... prose against classic... technique... plays with language... coherence of images... ‘Wasteland’ and ‘Four Quartets’...”

He writin somethin on de board now.

“5 Divisions of Rhetoric: 1)Invention 2)Disposition 3)Elocution 4)Memory/Recall 5)Delivery

Hey, kids! Wake-up! We’re not talking about pizza here. We’re talking about a sequential outward movement... public... retrieving older forms...”

What a long way dis guy has come. I can hardly believe it myself, lookin back at de stuff he used to write.

Ferries for the Soul

“Fairy” is inaccurate: It’s several letters off.

I tell you, gays are ferries for the soul.

Between the banks of yin and yang we operate, and cross

Biology to keep the genders whole,

As each contains its opposite - A “fairy” is that bridge

Between the male and female which allows

The two to interact outside the principle of marriage,

Existing as a necessary flaw.

Well, dat was back when he was JoD, I guess. Long time ago.

OH, you’re right, Maro. Gotta get goin to dat Board Meetin.