A favorite poem is like that first great kiss: you never forget it. The mere mention of it makes your face blush and your heart beat a little faster.

I first read “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” when I was just a junior in High School. I immediately fell in love, hard. Its gauzy spell never shook loose, never left me. To this day, I squeal when I find fragments of the poem reused, whether wrapped in pop culture or an academic treatise.

Why?

You see, unlike the very heady and often cryptic “Waste Land” (T.S. Eliot‘s most famous poem), “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” beckons to you from the first stanza. The language teases you, takes you for a walk, and leaves you breathless.

Its modern sensibility, its bleakness, its layered definition of love remain fresh despite the staleness of the title character. We may now measure our days with text messages instead of coffee spoons, but Prufrock’s cautionary tale about the perils of an ordinary adulthood nonetheless resonate. The bitter angst still bites. The wistful hope still lingers. And the unmatched desire remains almost inaudible.

Read It

Check out the full poem at Bartleby.com.

Hear It

Hear T.S. Eliot read his poem:

What’s your favorite poem?

Share your favorite poem by commenting on this post or joining our discussion on the enso poems facebook page.

the enso

"Turtles #1 - Offspring" by Mark Hiebert

the poem

When you breached
the surface, I mistook
your inquisitive face
— the soft unblinking eyes,
the grimly set mouth —
as a young carp who was too curious
for its own good. You, old turtle,
had traveled from the depths to see
why your offspring congregated
at the edge of the pier. You bore
pillows of lichen and wrinkles
that rippled along your thick neck
and slow legs. You moved
deliberately, tranquil,
as though all had been foreseen,
and stared at my pink fingers.
Perhaps no one had stopped here
long enough to appreciate the legacy
in this pond, the wisdom
you carry always with you,
as worn as your scuffed dome.