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I consider The Hollow Men one of the greatest poems in the English language, and certainly the greatest from the 20th century.

Here’s the start of it:

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.



It just captures so much of the era and so much of the desolation and emptiness that followed the war; it reflects the melancholy that swept through the world. It’s a sad poem. It feels cold, detached and lonely. And I love it because it is so effective. If I was reviewing this book based on my opinion of that poem alone then this would be a five-star rating.

But, alas, I am not because there is also a poem I detest in here. I consider The Waste Land one of the worse poems in the English language because of it’s incomprehensibleness. Every time I read it I get lost. Critically speaking, it a weird and wonderful construction but it is so inaccessible. I’ve read it several times over the years, and it really doesn’t get any easier.

So for me this is a very mixed bag, worth a read though!