Lawrence Ferlinghetti "Ferlinghetti: Rebirth of Wonder "Don't call me a Beat. I was never a Beat poet." Ferlinghetti actually penned much of his early poetry in the vein of T. S. Eliot. Ferlinghetti told poet and critic Jack Foley "Everything I wrote sounded just like him." Yet, even in his poems inspired by Eliot such as Ferlinghetti's "Constantly Risking Absurdity," Ferlinghetti is ever the populist as he compares the poet first to a trapeze artist in a circus and then to a "little charleychaplin man." Critics note that Ferlinghetti's poetry often takes on a very visual dimension as befits this poet who
T. S. Eliot at the age of 68, Eliot married Esmé Valerie Fletcher, who was 30. In contrast to his first marriage, Eliot knew Fletcher well, as she had been his secretary at Faber and Faber since August 1949. They kept their wedding secret; the ceremony was held in a church at 6:15 am with virtually no one in attendance other than his wife's parents. Eliot had no children with either of his wives. In the early 1960s, by then in failing health, Eliot worked as an editor for the Wesleyan University Press, seeking new poets in Europe for publication. After Eliot's death,