Prufrock's First Date

William Wordsworth defines poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” which aligns with the idea behind T. S. Eliot’s “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” as an expression of youthful angst. Today, youths full of angst still use poetry as a way to express their feelings, but in a different light.  A popular outlet for this angst is through YouTube and the performance of slam poetry. This can be demonstrated in Sabrina Benaim’s poem, “First Date” that she performs on the Button Poetry channel. There are many parallels between “First Date” and “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” as they both express these youthful feelings of angst and use the form of poetry but they differ in means of expressing those feelings according to the time period in which they were created.

Both Eliot and Benaim’s poems highlight youthful feelings of angst, but their feelings are fitting to the time period in which they are written. In “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock,” the speaker of the poem appears to be “etherized” by the women in the room of a party. His own self-consciousness gets in the way of his ability to speak to the women he is intimidated by and and compares it to disturbing the universe (45). He is concerned with the way he is dressed, his bald spot, and his body composition thus inhibiting him from engaging with the women in the room. “First Date” shows similar self-consciousness, but more in the way that she carries herself. She writes, “I wouldn’t say I am sensitive. I would say I am highly susceptible to feeling a lot,” exposing her insecurities about her feelings (12). She compares them to Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates analogy, but instead of not knowing what you get, she says she would rather eat them. This mentality of “eating one’s feelings” is a common expression when people are experiencing feelings of angst or anxiety. These hyperbolic statements are expressions of youthful angst and are reflections of the period in which they are written.

In addition, both Eliot and Benaim use the form of poetry to describe their feelings of angst. Eliot uses imagery and repetition to emphasize his main points throughout his poem. The refrain of his poem is “In the room the women come and go/ Talking of Michelangelo” which is meant to highlight what it is that is giving him feelings of angst (13-14). The women in the room intimidate him and the women are again brought up in the last lines of the poem in the form of sea-girls. Using the form of sea-girls, Eliot demonstrates a sense of disillusionment with the imagery that these women will drown him once reality sets back in. Yet, he also couples this with the idea of romance not being a reality, but rather a myth beside the sea-girls. Benaim, on the other hand, uses spoken word poetry and rather than using meter and rhyme, her method of delivery is in the delivery itself. The way she delivers a line and the rate at which the words flow from her mouth are what give emphasis to her main points. She speeds up just before a key line and slows down to get her audience to think about what it is she is saying. She uses onomatopoeia and repetition to bring attention to a specific line and use of short, sensory words create a child-like image in the audience’s mind. For example, when Benaim fluctuates the rate in her words for the lines, “Snap, Crackle, or Pop, me? Pop! I mean I got this violent tendency to see a bubble and want to pop it, which is to say I have held love. But I popped it and locked it, then dropped it and lost it. I don’t mind,” she is showing her angst in knowing that she once had something of value, yet does not mind that she has lost it (17-18). For, it is common in today’s time to nonchalantly act as though love does not hurt. Instead, we must show strength and patience as she also says the she “learn[s] love like ‘wait for it’” (21).  The use of poetry both in early twentieth century and current twenty first century is a common expression of youthful angst, but the styles of poetry differ.

These two poems differ in delivery and demonstration in the display of youthful angst. “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” is organized, it has stanzas, formal rhyme pattern, and is meant to be read on paper. Whereas “First Date” shows none of these attributes and is focused on delivery and references to pop culture to demonstrate its points. Both of these works represent youthful angst surrounding romance and are effective in their goals to deliver such feelings. They do so in ways that are representative of the time periods in which they were written and appeal to the audiences of such times.