T.S.Eliot was a hero of mine ever since I read his biography in our World Book Encyclopedia when I was a kid.
Here was an American who went to England and stayed there. I was intrigued. Funny how early in life something opens up. There’s a desire or a calling of some sort.
I was only about ten or twelve and Eliot’s life seemed both strange and already familiar to me.
I ended up going to study at Oxford and wore three piece suits and combed my hair with a high part and tried to write poems.
It was all part of a pilgrimage, and one I don’t regret. I still read Eliot and consider his Four Quartets some of the best Christian poetry ever written.
I once had to contact the publishing house Faber and Faber–who publish his poems. Somewhat despondent that the only works anthologized and read are The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock and The Waste Land, I asked the publisher which poems actually sold most.
He did not hesitate to say, “Oh, the Four Quartets are way out in front.”
Made my day.
About Fr. Dwight Longenecker
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