#prufrock

[gayalfredprufrock]

i have measured out my life in coffee spoons and so forth. sunsets, dooryards, sprinkled streets, novels, teacups, skirts that trail along the floor and whatnot. i'm not prince hamlet and wasn't meant to be. instead i'm ridiculous and maybe even the fool. the mermaids sing to each other but probably will never sing to me. dude i should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas. bro i already know the evenings and mornings and afternoons. but i've seen the eternal footman and i was scared. i can't keep lingering in the chambers of the sea and watching everyone coming and going and talking about michelangelo over and over until human voices wake me and i drown. but bro do i dare disturb the universe?

[poetictouch]

We Have Lingered In The Chambers Of The Sea

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.

~ T. S. Eliot

[4ngelattack]

Me when someone says it’s lunchtime but it’s actually Time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet and time to murder and create and time for all the works and days of hands that lift and drop a question on your plate time for you and time for me and time yet for a hundred indecisions and for a hundred visions and revisions

[haveyoureadthispoem-poll]

Have you read "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot?"

Yes

No

I've never heard of this

Voting ended onJan 31, 2024

"Do I dare / Disturb the universe? / In a minute there is time / For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse."

Read it here | Reblog for a larger sample size!

[cosmik-homo]

I really can't quite explain it, but I think "Once in a lifetime" by the Talking Heads and The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock (by T.S. Elliott) really are about the same thing. Things. I'm very normal about these pieces.

[alliterationbrainscratch]

before the Taking of a Toast and Tea

From "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot

[stargazer333]

And indeed there will be time [...] There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. [...] Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room.                So how should I presume? - T. S. Eliot

[charminglyantiquated]

The Hanged Man/The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock from the Literary Tarot

Celeste Ng chose to match T. S. Eliot‘s poem with the Hanged Man. The card can be read as a moment of deliberate pause, whether for contemplation or out of indecision, and the entirety of Prufrock takes place in that moment of uncertainty: what, if anything, will he do?

This ended up being one of my personal favorite cards - I like the poem, and I like the early-evening quietness of the illustration. Nevertheless, it was a weird one to draw! As a poem with a somewhat nebulous series of visual images, it doesn’t have any concrete, recognizable scenes per se, so I ended up with a shortlist of every mentioned visual and mashed them together in a bunch of different combinations. In the final version, the references include the “yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes”, the vaguely mentioned teatime with his companion of the braceleted arms, the peach from the beach that he imagines, and the mermaids from the same overlooking the scene as paintings. Prufrock himself is “pinned and wriggling on the wall” (which ended up being a nice way to marry the poem and the thing fixing the Hanged Man in place), facing away from his companion even as they drink tea together: in the moment of the poem, he is yet unwilling to face the upcoming conversation, if he even initiates it all.

You can see more of the cards, and read the author’s reasoning behind each pairing, on the Kickstarter Page!