'At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where the past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor
towards...'




T. S. Eliot's poetry is undeniably slippery, especially for those foolish enough to hope to glimpse an image of the man himself beneath the layers of classical literary references and philosophical musings. In his essay 'Tradition and the Individual Talent' Eliot argues that as well as working within the literary tradition rather than seeking to escape it, good poets must not only separate themselves from their poetry, but even from that within them that experiences the things that they seek to transform into poetry. For Eliot there must be a clear distinction between 'the man who suffers and the mind which creates'. When we look at poems like The Wasteland with it's profound sense of loss, confusion and disillusionment we imagine this 'man who suffers' yet within Volume One of The Letters of T. S. Eliot (1898-1922) I'm yet to locate him. I am beginning to wonder if perhaps, like J. Alfred Prufrock, he is not there. Perhaps he is rather a spectre conjured by Eliot on which he projected and burdened his artistic impulses and less refined emotions. Nonetheless the game of cat and mouse is rather good fun.

Recently I've been wrestling with Four Quarters and in particular the opening section Burnt Norton. Unlike the Wasteland here Eliot's fragments are hopeful and even coherent in tone, as rather than mourning the loss of meaning he seems to question how much it was ever really there and offers hope in the shape of transcendence through art and, most pleasingly to me, the possibility of joy, beauty and even transcendence in the moment, the thrill of temporal existence at the 'still point'.

This got me thinking in a surprisingly macho way about sport and I have begun to formulate a clumsy thesis- that the moments Mr Eliot was referring to not only come must regularly through physical activity but that the moment where 'the dance is' can be specifically located in sporting photographs.

What I enjoy most about cycling is the oblivion of it. The focus on spinning the pedal efficiently and powerfully, on repeating the process over and over, thinking about only that endlessly and completely. Now look at the always suave two times Tour De France winner Alberto Contador in the image above, seemingly frozen on his pedals in that almost balletic angular sweep. The focus is etched on his face; for him there is only the moment, 'there is only the dance', or rather an endless repetition of fleeting moments, of muscle and metal.

Look at sporting photographs and you can see it. Search the faces, the tensed bodies, the dedication to the moment. It's practically zen like -





Perhaps it is even this that makes sport so fantastic and compelling, that it forces you whether watching or playing to exist solely in the moment. Perhaps all Eliot had to do to escape all the fragmentation he sensed around him was take up a hobby. To pull on some lycra and hop on a bike, to chuck a bit of plastic around, to chuck down some unedited manuscripts for goal posts and indulge in a game of headers and volleys with Ezra Pound.

It certainly worked for Gianluigi Buffon, the philosophically minded and fiery goal keeper pictured above-

'In football, my thoughts, my opinions, are not immediately visible; they are made evident through gestures, reactions, and reflexes. They depend as well on a very specific situation that I need to relate to at that particular moment; there is no time for hesitation.'
(Chance, intelligence, and humor: An interview with Gianluigi Buffon- Cabinet Issue 19).

I'm yet to find a letter in the aforementioned volume in which Eliot describes (Hornby-esque) the experience of watching or even taking part in a penalty shoot out but I'm hopeful. Very hopeful indeed.

Come on Eliot, on me 'ead!