Anne Skyvington
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Anne Skyvington

The Craft of Writing

  • Writing
    • Craft
      • Structuring a Short Story
      • Alternative Narrative Approaches
      • Genre in Writing
      • A Grain of Folly
        • Novel Writing
          • The Sea Voyage: a metaphor
          • How I Created My Debut Novel
          • What I learnt from writing a novel…
          • Short Story
            • At the Swimming Pool
            • The Night of the Barricades
          • Poetry
            • a funny thing happened …
            • An ancient mystic: Rumi
            • A Window into Poetry
            • The Voice of T.S. Eliot
  • Publishing
    • A Change of Blog Title
    • 5 Further Publishing Facts
    • 5 Facts I Learnt About Self/Publishing
    • Highs and Lows of Self Publishing
    • A Perfect Pitch to a Publisher
    • A Useful Site for Readers and Indie Authors: Books 2 Read
  • Book Reviews
    • A Story of a Special Child
    • Discovering Karrana
    • A Young Adult Novel: My French Barrette
    • Randwick Writers’ Group: Sharing Writing Skills
    • The Trouble With Flying: A Review
  • Mythos
    • Ancient Stories from Childhood
    • Births Deaths and Marriages
    • Duality or Onenness: The Moon
    • The Myth of Persephone and Demeter
    • Pandora’s Box
    • 7 ancient artefacts in the British Museum
    • Symbolism of Twins
    • The Agony and the Ecstasy of Change
    • Voices From the Past
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    • A Story of a Genteel Ghost told by Roger Britton
  • Psychology
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    • Adriatic Romance … Rijeka to Titograd
    • Always something there to remind me…
    • A Well-Loved Pet
    • Candidly Yours…
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PoetryWriting

Prufrock: Part I

written by Anne Skyvington November 24, 2016
art-painting-michelangelo.

The Image below is of a photo I took outside Il Palazzetto Bar near the Spanish Steps in Rome in 2012. It suggests obliquely for me the unexpressed sentiments in the poem of loss, love, and melancholy related to growing old. Eliot was reading Dante Alighieri’s main works when he wrote this poem. The photo at the bottom of this post is of a statue I came across on a street corner, during my first visit to the Eternal City in 2009.

palazzo.roma.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
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 indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
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?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

T.S. Eliot

leda-swan-street-corner-rome

Prufrock: Part I was last modified: June 17th, 2017 by Anne Skyvington
loss of love and youth in T.S. Eliot's poemmelancholy linked to growing old in Prufrock
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Anne Skyvington

I have been a reader/writer all of my life as far back as I can remember. Blogging has opened me up to another world, where I can share my skills and continue to create through word and picture. Writing is about seeing the world and recreating it for others to see through different eyes.

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Prufrock: Part 2

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Anne Skyvington

Anne Skyvington is a writer based in Sydney who has been practising and teaching creative writing skills for many years. You can learn here about structuring a short story and how to go about creating a longer work, such as a novel or a memoir. Subscribe to this blog and receive a monthly newsletter on creative writing topics and events.

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About The Author

About The Author

Anne Skyvington is a Sydney-based writer and blogger. <a href="http://anneskyvington.com.au She has self-published a novel, 'Karrana' and is currently writing a creative memoir based on her life and childhood with a spiritual/mystical dimension.

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