For Eliot, there was never any tension between those two modes: “One wants to keep one’s hand in, you know, in every type of poem, serious and frivolous and proper and improper. In stark contrast to most of Eliot's other works-which are complex and frequently nihilistic-the poems here were decidedly playful. In 1939, Eliot published a book of poetry, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, which included feline-focused verses he likely wrote for his godson. One of the longest-running Broadway shows ever exists thanks to T.S. “The danger, as a rule, of having nothing else to do is that one might write too much rather than concentrating and perfecting smaller amounts.” 2.

“I feel quite sure that if I’d started by having independent means, if I hadn’t had to bother about earning a living and could have given all my time to poetry, it would have had a deadening influence on me,” Eliot said.

In a 1959 interview with The Paris Review, Eliot remarked that his banking and publishing jobs actually helped him be a better poet. He could only write poetry in his spare time, but he preferred it that way. Throughout his life, Eliot supported himself by working as a teacher, banker, and editor. Born September 26, 1888, modernist poet and playwright Thomas Stearns (T.S.) Eliot is best known for writing 'The Waste Land.' But the 1948 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature was also a prankster who coined a perennially popular curse word, and created the characters brought to life in the Broadway musical 'Cats.' In honor of Eliot’s birthday, here are a few things you might not know about the writer.

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