This month marks the centenary of the publication of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, so let’s write a waste land poem.
You don’t have to know the poem to use the prompt though I strongly encourage you to read The Waste Land at some point in your career as a poet. It’s a remarkable work and obtuse in the extreme. Best to read it with one of the many online guides so you can decipher his arcane references.
Whether you read it or not, don’t waste this prompt and post your poem in the comments below.
About Bartholomew Barker
Bartholomew Barker is an organizer of Living Poetry, a collection of poets in the Triangle region of North Carolina where he has hosted a monthly feedback workshop for more than decade. His first poetry collection, Wednesday Night Regular, written in and about strip clubs, was published in 2013. His second, Milkshakes and Chilidogs, a chapbook of food inspired poetry was served in 2017. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2021. Born and raised in Ohio, studied in Chicago, he worked in Connecticut for nearly twenty years before moving to Hillsborough where he lives and writes poetry.
Living Poetry 
Apologies. Travel lag!! Are you able to delete my original post Bartholomew?
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Posted by Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris | October 24, 2022, 7:35 PMhttps://gypsieswritingmusingsquotesgripes.com/2022/10/24/lifes-waste-land/
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Posted by Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris | October 24, 2022, 7:40 PMA story of another wasted marriage. Well done!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 24, 2022, 7:43 PMThank you Bartholomew! 😊
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Posted by Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris | October 24, 2022, 7:43 PMA factual portrait of some marriage and family.
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Posted by Cassa Bassa | October 27, 2022, 5:23 PMMore than one could ever imagine! Thank you for reading and commenting. It is deeply appreciated! 🙏
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Posted by Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris | October 27, 2022, 7:03 PMLikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 25, 2022, 7:11 PMYes some actually do look like ‘Death warmed over’…scary.
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Posted by ts19page | October 27, 2022, 5:27 PMSoldier on
The city is stirred to uncertainty
among concrete slabs
and slate stones
Grey is the mood
mixing with false Hope
of a human Messiah
clothed in eloquent speech
and charisma
Change births no life
autumn leaves bring on doom
Yet, we are still hopeful
knowing the joy of spring
The vision of new life
and growth
gives us the strength
to plough through the wasteland
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Posted by Cassa Bassa | October 27, 2022, 5:19 PMVery nice. I especially liked the “Messiah clothed in eloquent speech” Well done!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 27, 2022, 7:03 PMLikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by JeanMarie | October 28, 2022, 11:31 PMGreat use of the prompt and a great political poem.
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 29, 2022, 12:19 AMThank you sir!
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Posted by JeanMarie | October 29, 2022, 2:31 AMI’ve stood at the edge of the event horizon
watching the frenzied firefall of the end of all things
time frozen in their last moments of being
bits of our world in various states of destruction
Old Cribs, Orange Dodge Challengers
Nixon for President buttons
Let’s Go Mets
And as I turn to walk away I saw my world extend before me
All the things that I had done
Code still in Alpha
The Harris Teeter down the street
The Indian cashier I’ve seen almost daily for 7 years
Cheerful
A bright ring in each own-star day
Children catching the bus to the new middle school
Just built with funds allocated years ago
The dark floaters in my eyes
looking like living shadows
eye worms
in the larch near the northern outskirts of Kiev
unlucky insects caught on the pool’s surface
Too small to be be saved by even the most ardent Jain
I reached down to scoop them all out
and lay them gently on the side of the warm green grass
watch them stretch their water logged bodies
crawl away through the grass
diapered toddlers
who quickly join the line to get on the bus
before it pulls away.
And in the reflective glint of the bus’s windows
I see behind me darkness of a world uncreated
where the light of the warm-lovers moon and a high-and-lonesome moon
shine together upon the nightland behind me
green and purple streaks
Clouds illuminated moving across the sky
the mother tree reaching out with arms widespread
I turn to walk towards it
and find that I am unable to head in that direction
it is only then that I realize
the true nature of event horizon
and where it actually is
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Posted by Chris Clarke | October 30, 2022, 11:01 PMEpic! Love the floaters like eye worms. Well done!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 31, 2022, 7:22 PM