How to Write during the Cruelest Month

April is the cruellest month, breeding 

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing 

Memory and desire, stirring 

Dull roots with spring rain.  

—T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land, Section 1: “The Burial of the Dead”

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How should we approach this month? The trees are budding while tens of thousands lie dead and dying. Should we enter April 2020 with hope or despair? 

If I may suggest it, perhaps a bit of both?

In the aftermath of World War I, T. S. Eliot wrote The Waste Land, a long, brilliant, and disturbing masterpiece of modern poetry. In it, he lamented the death, change, and “barren lusts” that had come over the world. Later, Eliot would find faith in Christ’s redemption. His poems “Ash Wednesday” and The Four Quartets reveal a hope not found in the despair of The Waste Land. But we need all three poems. 

When we fail to recognize the depth of our human despair, we also fail to acknowledge the strength of our hope. 

Poems like The Waste Land shake us from our winter slumber. They call us to pay attention to the numbness in our souls, to thaw our emotions and let them flow, to open our eyes against the cold and find a path to warmth and home. 

Acknowledging despair and sitting in it for a while is like a friend attending a wake for as long as the deceased’s mother needs her to be there. By being present in grief, we help others grieve. Eventually the mother will sing, “Oh death, where is your sting?” but not now. Not right at this moment. At this moment, the sting’s intensity crowds out all other input and thoughts. 

Similarly, proclaiming hope is like giving a blind man new glasses that show him the future, as in the portion of Four Quartets that follows. In this passage, Eliot alludes to Christ’s baptism, Pentecost, and contrast between eternal torment and refining fire: 

The dove descending breaks the air 

With flame of incandescent terror 

Of which the tongues declare 

The one discharge from sin and error. 

The only hope, or else despair 

     Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre— 

     To be redeemed from fire by fire. 

     Who then devised the torment? Love. 

Love is the unfamiliar Name 

Behind the hands that wove 

The intolerable shirt of flame 

Which human power cannot remove. 

     We only live, only suspire 

     Consumed by either fire or fire.  

(“Little Gidding,” section IV lines 200–213) 

True hope neither dismisses pain, nor runs away from it, nor tries to drown it out by splashing every cry of anguish with a verse. True hope walks through the flame with us, shining an even stronger light as a beacon, leading us to what lies ahead. 
 

A Writing and Reading Plan for April 

What should you write this month? Perhaps consider digging into despair. Explore the fears you would rather push to the edges. 

If fear and despair flood your everyday moments, however, perhaps now is the time to kindle a bit of hope. What truth speaks to the darkest thought of your heart? 

Reading can also open up a treasure box of emotion. Consider working slowly through the discord of The Waste Land. Use Google Translate to help you decipher the lines written in foreign languages. Check out a free, online commentary like Sparknotes to give you a running head start with Eliot’s complex allusions. And reference articles like this one from Christianity Today to better understand the author’s context and growth. 

Or if the thought of trying to read Eliot’s poems makes your knees go weak, then start with one of my favorite poems by former American poet laureate Billy Collins, “Introduction to Poetry.” 

Let me know how I can pray for you. 

Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning, 

Every poem an epitaph. (“Little Gidding,” section V lines 224–25)