10 T. S. Eliot Poems Everyone Should Read

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

T. S. Eliot is widely regarded as one of the most important poets of the last hundred years. Here at Interesting Literature we’re devoted fans of his work, and this got us thinking: which ten defining poems would we recommend to people who want to read him?

Although he didn’t write a huge amount of poetry (compared with, say, his contemporary Ezra Pound, whose The Cantos is nearly 800 pages), it can still be difficult for readers to pick out those works which most define him. And, of course, every Eliot fan’s choice of ten is likely to different.

Read more

Guest Blog: ‘The Raven’ – Nevermore

By Eric Nicholson Edgar Allan Poe wrote an essay, ‘The Philosophy of Composition’, in which he details the writing of his sensational poem ‘The Raven’. If we are to believe the account, he carefully planned the theme, the setting, the metre and every poetic effect – ‘each step with the precision of a mathematical problem’. … Read more

Five Fascinating Facts about Dylan Thomas

Interesting facts about the life and work of Dylan Thomas 1. Dylan Thomas was born in Dylan Marlais Thomas, in Swansea, in 1914. His middle name was Marlais, which was a nod to his great-uncle, William Thomas, who was also a poet. William Thomas’s bardic name was Gwilym Marles. 2. One of Thomas’s first published poems was … Read more

10 Great Quotes about Poetry for National Poetry Day

For National Poetry Day 2014, here are our ten favourite quotes from writers, artists, and thinkers about poetry. If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. – Emily Dickinson The first man to compare the cheeks of a young … Read more

10 Great Quotes from T. S. Eliot on His Birthday

T. S. Eliot could be as witty as Wilde and as thought-provoking as Einstein with his one-liners, and so here are some choice quotes from this leading twentieth-century poet and all-round literary giant. Eliot’s life was a fascinating one: he was born on 26 September 1888 in Missouri, studied at Harvard, then transferred to Oxford, … Read more