Do I Dare Disturb the Universe

A hundred years ago, one of my favorite poems, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot, was published in the June, 1915 issue of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse.

While the poem has now become quite influential in the world of modern poetry, its significance was initially overlooked by critics. In London on June 21, 1917, The Times Literary Supplement printed the following unsigned review:

“The fact that these things occurred to the mind of Mr. Eliot is surely of the very smallest importance to anyone, even to himself.  They certainly have no relation to poetry.”

One of the “things” that occurred to the mind of Mr. Eliot was the question:

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?

This question has haunted me ever since I read it many years ago. It speaks to the very essence of my life – do I dare to fully live?

Do I dare to sit in the front row of a class even though the teacher might ask me a question for which I am not prepared to give an answer?

Do I dare say, “I love you” first even if my beloved might explode into a confetti of derisive laughter?

Do I dare submit a poem for publication even if it might be rejected a hundred times and, if published, might be reviewed as badly as Mr. Eliot’s?

The answer is yes. I do dare to do these things. It is when I have taken the greatest risks in my life that I have achieved the greatest success.

After working for another attorney for a year or two I took the risk of opening my own law practice, with a partner.  We had to pay the rent, the telephone bill, and the salary of our secretary before we had even a dollar with which to take care of our own families.

More than forty-five years ago I borrowed what was, and still is, a huge amount of money to invest in real estate even though I could have later faced the very real possibility of bankruptcy.

Twenty years ago I began to publish the poetry journal Rattle, following only my own taste to help me decide what poems to publish. I began a series of conversations with noted poets even though I felt awkward and knew very little about how to conduct an interview.

These are three successes which would not have been possible if I had continued as an employee of another attorney, refused to borrow money from several banks, or declined to take the risk of disturbing the universe with poetry I liked.

But success is not the point.  As a young attorney I invested in a billiard hall, which failed.  The manager stole most of the money.  I invested in three oil wells in Ohio and three farms in Nebraska.  My investments were lost.  More recently I ended a friendship of more than ten years when I discovered that my “friend” had been cheating me financially.

So the question is not whether you will flourish or flop.  The question is whether you will stretch yourself and try.  If you do, sometimes you will succeed and other times you will fail.  But, in the process, you will also truly live.

On the one hundredth anniversary of the publication of his first important work, I would like to honor the risk that T. S. Eliot took in publishing Prufrock, by suggesting to you a slight shift in his overwhelming question.

Do I dare
Not disturb the universe?

Alan