The Naming of Cats The Naming of Cats "The Naming of Cats" is a poem in T. S. Eliot's poetry book "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" and its stage adaptation, Andrew Lloyd Webber's popular musical "Cats". It describes to humans how cats get their names. The poem has also been quoted in other films, notably "Logan's Run", when Logan meets the old man outside the dome city. The poem uses a short rhythmic dialogue to describe how cats get or choose their names. It also shows how cats are also mysterious and devious, e.g., with the line "The name that no human research
T. S. Eliot one of the most moving poems Eliot wrote, and perhaps the "most perfect", though it was not well received by everyone. The poem's groundwork of orthodox Christianity discomfited many of the more secular "literati". In 1939, Eliot published a book of light verse, "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" ("Old Possum" was Ezra Pound's nickname for him). This first edition had an illustration of the author on the cover. In 1954, the composer Alan Rawsthorne set six of the poems for speaker and orchestra in a work titled "Practical Cats". After Eliot's death, the book was adapted as the basis