Paul Viiding Paul Viiding Paul Viiding (22 May 1904 – 27 June 1962) was an Estonian poet, author and literary critic. Born in Valga, Estonia to Juhan and Ann Viiding ("née" Rose), he was the oldest of two children; his sister Linda was born in 1907. He graduated with a degree in mathematics in Tartu before pursuing a career as an author and poet. He was a member of the influential group of Estonian poets brought together in 1938 by literary scholar Ants Oras who was greatly influenced by T. S. Eliot. The small circle of six poets became known as "Arbujad"
T. S. Eliot Eliot, his friend Robert Sencourt comments that the young Eliot "would often curl up in the window-seat behind an enormous book, setting the drug of dreams against the pain of living." Secondly, Eliot credited his hometown with fuelling his literary vision: "It is self-evident that St. Louis affected me more deeply than any other environment has ever done. I feel that there is something in having passed one's childhood beside the big river, which is incommunicable to those people who have not. I consider myself fortunate to have been born here, rather than in Boston, or New York, or London."