Which poet wrote the modernist poem 'The Waste Land'?

The modernist poem “The Waste Land” was written by T. S. Eliot. Published in 1922, it became one of the defining works of twentieth-century modernism.

The poem is arranged in five sections and moves abruptly among speakers, settings, languages, literary traditions, and historical periods. Its collage-like method reflects the cultural dislocation Eliot associated with the aftermath of the First World War. Famous lines include “April is the cruellest month” and “These fragments I have shored against my ruins.”

Ezra Pound was not the author, though he played a major editorial role. Eliot dedicated the poem to Pound as “il miglior fabbro,” and Pound’s cuts substantially reduced the manuscript. The Waste Land also draws on sources including the Grail legend, Dante, Shakespeare, Buddhist texts, and the Upanishads. Its difficulty is deliberate: the poem asks readers to experience fragmentation as much as interpret it.