“APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.”
– T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland
“I don’t need to fight
To prove I’m right
I don’t need to be forgiven
Don’t cry
Don’t raise your eye
It’s only teenage wasteland.”
– The Who, “Baba O’Riley (Teenage Wasteland)”
“can we have class outside”
– teenagers
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land,
we’re graduating in may
do we seriously still have to do the reading
theres like three weeks left you cant be serious
mixing Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
can we have class outside
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
its so nice out can we have class outside just once
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
i dont take german
you know i dont take german im in AP spanish
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight.
and i said fuck you you’re not the boss of me
you’re not the archduke of sleds
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock)
no
fuck you
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu,
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?
oh my god i dont fucking know any german
except for what they say in nazi movies
so like maybe four german words
“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
They called me the hyacinth girl.”
no one calls you that
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Öd’ und leer das Meer.
oh good great
ive magically learned german since the last time you tried to talk german at me
oh fucking wait
no
i assing havent
Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
thats not mine
i dont know where you got it but its not mine
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
no
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
oh my god how much longer is this going to take
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man.
ok well then why fucking even tell me about him
i dont find shit all the time
Fear death by water.
ok
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
yeah its fucking gym class
congratulations youre a fucking psychic
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.
tell her yourself
Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying “Stetson!
You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”
I
AM IN
AP GODDAMN SPANISH
NOT GERMAN
NOT FRENCH
NOT LATIN WITH THE LATIN FREAKS
I DONT SPEAK ELVISH OR KLINGON
I SPEAK AP SPANISH
this is why no one talks to you
in like any language
II. A GAME OF CHESS
The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion;
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
Huge sea-wood fed with copper
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam.
Above the antique mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
“Jug Jug” to dirty ears.
And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the walls; staring forms
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair,
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.
“My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
i have to go i have a thing
Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.
What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
oh my god
nothing
I never know what you are thinking. Think.”
just kidding
im thinking of how much you suck butts
I think we are in rats’ alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.
oh okay well i fuckin think we’re in
dog-ass river
where everyone’s eyes are bastards
see
i can make shit up too
“What is that noise?”
The wind under the door.
“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”
NOTHING
GOD
“Do
You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
Nothing?”
I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
“Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?”
But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It’s so elegant
So intelligent
i dont even take shakespeare
they dont even let sophomores take that class
im in fucking advanced comp
and it fucking sucks
“What shall I do now? What shall I do?
you should fuck offffffff
I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
With my hair down, so.
well youre still gonna be late for civ
so you might as well comb it first
you look like fucking shit
What shall we do to-morrow?
What shall we ever do?”
The hot water at ten.
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
im not going to do that
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.
do you have any weed
When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said,
I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself,
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
ill be there in a minuuuute god
Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.
And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said.
Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said,
Others can pick and choose if you can’t.
But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling.
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
why are all your friends so old
why are your friends all in the army and so old
I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.)
The chemist said it would be alright, but I’ve never been the same.
You are a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you don’t want children?
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
this is the weirdest prom
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.
ok bye
god
is he gone
fucking finally
can we have class outside today
Tags: poetry, teenage dirtbags, teenage wasteland, the wasteland, the who, ts eliot
‘teenagers are awful’ = official toast stance?
I think that one’s an official everyone stance.
*shudders in memory*
I love teenagers! I think kids are best from age 12-18, even when they are obnoxious. That said, I find the sounds of babies giggling to be like nails on a chalkboard, which no one else seems to agree with, so it’s possible there is something wrong with me.
I agree SO HARD. I love teenagers but mostly I love teenage girls. They’re fucking great. So angry and so stupid, I love them. And now that I’m not one anymore I don’t have to resent 90 percent of them, I can just like all of them. And I do! Everybody hates teenagers because they care about stuff, especially sex, and don’t have to have jobs. Well, I care about stuff too! Especially sex. And I have a job but I sure wouldn’t if I didn’t have to. so I relate.
I was so sure I would dislike this stage of parenting (babies are the best! toddlers rock! all so true!), but it turns out that I adore teenagers. They’re balls of complexity, for damn sure, but surprisingly excellent for all that.
(I mean, other people’s teenagers may be horrifying. Mine, though. Mine are the best.) (Sometimes.) (Rarely at 11 pm.) I do like other teens, too, not just mine.
(Yes, to be fair, I secretly think they’re kind of great, too. When I was student-teaching, the 8th-graders were my favorite, closely followed by the 5th-graders. It’s those ALMOST-teenagers in between that you’ve got to watch out for.)
Seriously, my 14yo & his friends? I coach them on a creativity competition, have done since they were in 3rd grade. There are times I spend 2 hours just fussing at them, but they’re so damn funny and good-naturedly mean to each other and full of dreams and snotty and smart and ridiculous.
(But once in 6th grade I was going to kill them all. Lovingly, apologetically, but murder.)
Quoth a Tanith Lee character, “Mothers are notoriously partial, else we should few of us live to adulthood.”
I LOVE TEENS I LOVE DIRTBAGS I LOVE TEENAGE DIRTBAGS
I totally snorted at “fuck you you’re not the boss of me/ you’re not the archduke of sleds.”
It’s my new comeback for every situation.
Everything after that was read through tears.
Oh my god, I can so accurately hear the tone in which the anonymous teen tells the Hyacinth girl that “no one calls you that”.
At what point do we suppose Eliot stopped reading the words he was writing down? I’ve always wondered.
(I am bad at poetry appreciation. I am, however, good at doggerel.)
Even as an Eliot fan, he loses me somewhere after the hyacinths and way before we get to lidless eyes (which make me think of Sartre, and then make me shudder). Maybe I’m secretly still a teenager.
I love Eliot, too, but somehow this is the first time I’ve noticed that this poem (or the hinterlands of it, anyway) is about abortion. MALLORY!
It is! And I’m always torn between whether the hyacinth girl’s friend is experiencing sudden nihilistic awareness of morality or orgasm.
And the hyacinth “girl” was based on a dead male friend of Eliot’s.
“assing”
But… why can’t we have class outside today?? It’s 65 degrees and it’s February. C’mon. It’s been snowing for 10 years and this is literally the nicest day of the year so far. I have never even seen anyone in the courtyard this year. It’s been locked ever since the seniors tried to have a food fight in it last spring. Teachers have to get the key from the office if they wanna have class there. Why are we being punished for stuff the class of ’13 did? Did you guys just forget that you locked it? Did you just forget that sometimes people want to be outside of these windowless rooms? OH MY GOD, you lost the key, didn’t you. Didn’t you.
this is awesome.
But what if I AM the Archduke of Sleds? What then?
who knew teenage dirtbags could be such a wellspring of literary humor? Mallory, that’s who.
I WANT TEENAGE DIRTBAGS TO BE A SERIES.
I think my favorite part is how for the entire beginning of “A Game of Chess” the kid just shuts up, seemingly fuming in a silent rage, only to try to leave when given an opportunity. Masterful character development 10/10. I wish this kept going I was imagining their reaction to the ending.
I need Mallory to do this to all poems everywhere! This was awesome!
“Fear death by water.
ok”
“I SPEAK AP SPANISH”
I haven’t even finished, I just had to come down and say: DYING. OK back to reading.
seriously, that was the best effing line ever written.
Mallory Ortberg, please be my friend forever and never stop being you.
…I am kind of in love with this teenage dirtbag. Come on, tell me you wouldn’t react exactly like that if you were trapped in a room with T.S. Eliot.
http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=313
“Choking on Dicks Forever, Where Did All These Dicks In My Mouth Come From”
i would see this musical.
“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”
NOTHING
GOD
… hahahhahaha
As a huge fan of literature and poetry, this is still basically my reaction to T.S. Eliot. And man, fuck you, you’re not the archduke of sleds. Also the enormous lack of awareness in “why are your friends all in the army and so old”, I love it.
This is why I miss teaching high school. Keeping a straight face while kids said things like “I SPEAK AP SPANISH…” I miss those kids.
This is basically how I feel about most poetry.
1. This is amazing.
2. I guess this is the first time I’ve ever read The Wasteland. I have no idea why. I read the ones about the cats and the mermaids.
There are three more parts, as I recall. It gets weirder from here.
I do not find
The Hanged Man.
ok well then why fucking even tell me about him
i dont find shit all the time
HAHAHAH. Amazing. Also i agree. Keep that shit to yourself, Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks. If you can’t find it, ain’t no one else going to find it for you.
To this poem, throwing the middle finger of dirtbaggery into the archly dense symbolism of Modernist poetry, I shall offer a hug, and it shall shrug out of that hug with a “don’t assing touch me you creep.”
AND I LOVE IT ALL THE MORE.
I love The Wasteland almost as much as I love this post. This is perfect
Oh, thank god. I was getting bored giving my freshmen LOLCats Waste Land every year and now I have something new to make them wonder what the hell I’m on about.
(P.S. The ending of A Game of Chess is ABOUT ABORTION! And now you know.)
(P.P.S. It’s two words: Waste Land. And now I am a pedant.)
but the song is one word!
Yes! And that citation is totally correct! But the one for the poem is not. (I am a terrible person who corrects this everywhere because I got it wrong so many, many times between the ages of 15 and 26ish. Same with Macbeth, which does not have a capital B. Please feel free to ignore me and my quibbles.)
Oh my god where was this a year ago when I was slogging through my thesis???
Also it is so wonderful to hear Eliot’s voice reading this to an unreceptive teen audience.
I imagine it’s a lot like reading to the Queen Mother.
“The Queen Mother described T. S. Eliot as “this rather lugubrious man in a suit” who “read a poem,” adding, “I think it was called ‘The Desert.’ ””
Found the rest of the conversation:
“And first the girls got the giggles, and then I did and then even the King.”
Wilson: ” ‘The Desert,’ ma’am? Are you sure it wasn’t called ‘The Waste Land?’ ”
Elizabeth: “That’s it. I’m afraid we all giggled. Such a gloomy man, looked as though he worked in a bank, and we didn’t understand a word.”
Wilson: “I believe he DID once work in a bank.”
That is the most perfect thing.
Am I the only one thinking that this reads like Karkat trying to get through Eliot?