WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Poetry Fix: The Hollow Men, Part One

Episode Date: March 2, 2025

Today, Erika Kyba is joined by Alexandra Comus to read an excerpt from "The Hollow Men," by T. S. Eliot. This is a poem that warns about the consequences of living without meaning, as the shadow of death continually hangs over the world.

Welcome to the Poetry Fix on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm your host, Erica Kaiba, bringing you your weekly fix of poetry from across time. Today we're reading the first and second parts of the Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot. I'll be joined by Alexandra Comus of the Hillsdale Class of 26. This is one of Elliot's many powerful condemnations of his generation, as he reflects on their inability to act, which is motivated by a lack of core belief. The modernist age that Elliot finds himself in scorns Christianity as a relic of the past, but has not found a suitable replacement to guide their lives.

The modern man wavers between seeing meaning in the world and dispensing with it altogether. His general confusion about what he believes makes him a man without substance, a hollow man. The poem opens with a reference to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, quoting a line in which a man announces the death of Mr. Kurtz, The book's antagonist. Kurtz, as the manager of an ivory trading company in the Congo, who was responsible for terrible oppression of the local tribes. As he succumbs to illness, his last words are,

The horror, the horror. Elliot's very next reference is to a rather dark English tradition. The expression, he quotes, a penny for the old guy, refers to Guy Fox, who was responsible for the gunpowder plot of 1605. The plot was uncovered by King James VI before the attempt on his life could be made, and Fox was executed. Children used to burn effigies of Guy Fox to celebrate his death

and ask for pennies to undertake this, hence the phrase, a penny for the old guy. Elliot chooses to begin his poem with two horrifying depictions of death. Why might he choose to do this? Let's consider that as we dive in. The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot, read by Alexandra Comus and Erica Kaiba. Mr. Kurtz, he did. A penny for the old guy.

We are the holoman. 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, a rat's feet over broken glass in our dry cellar. Shape without form, shade without color, paralyzed 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. Eyes I dare not meet in dreams, in death's dream kingdom. These do not appear. There the eyes are sunlight on a broken column. There is a tree swinging, and voices are in the wind singing, more distant and more solemn than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer in Death's Dream Kingdom. Let me also wear such deliberate disguises. Rats coat, crowskin, cross staves, in a field behaving as a wind behaves. No nearer. Not that final meeting in the Twilight Kingdom. You've been listening to The Poetry Fix with Erica Kaiba. If you enjoyed this episode, consider following the Poetry Fix on Spotify, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. And if you have any poems you want to see in a future episode, email your suggestions to The Poetry Fix at gmail.com.

Join me next week, and we'll be reading Beggar to Beggar Cried by William Butler Yates.