T.S. Eliot Reads Poetry, Describes His Next Project

"I'd like to do a play next." T.S. Eliot '10 said yesterday afternoon following an hour's reading of his poetry to an overflow audience of about 1700 in Sanders Theatre. The drama, his first work since "Four Quartets," will be a "sort of successor to 'Family Reunion,' " he said.

Speaking under the auspices of the Morris Gray Poetry Fund, Eliot introduced as "the first poet of our time," read representative selections from all of his periods. In addition to such standbys as "The Waste Land" and "The Hollow Men," he read his five "Landscapes" and gave a particularly dramatic interpretation of "Triumphal March."

War Duties

During the war, Eliot explained after the reading, pressure of other duties ("There are, after all, things one must do") prevented completion of anything more than the "Quartets," and now for the first time he expects to have enough time and peace to get back to work. England's cold, he said, has been somewhat troublesome, although "as far as the food is concerned, I can get along."

The 1947 Harvard scene, the 1910 graduate found, gives an immediate and striking impression of tenseness and worry. "Nobody ever seems to stop working. It was certainly not like that in my day," he said, suggesting that students now are representatives of a new "Worried Generation." "I don't mean to suggest," he smiled, "that there isn't plenty to worry about."