T. S. Eliot Possum's Book of Practical Cats" (1939), a collection of light verse; "Poems Written in Early Youth", posthumously published in 1967 and consisting mainly of poems published between 1907 and 1910 in "The Harvard Advocate", and "Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909–1917", material Eliot never intended to have published, which appeared posthumously in 1997. During an interview in 1959, Eliot said of his nationality and its role in his work: "I'd say that my poetry has obviously more in common with my distinguished contemporaries in America than with anything written in my generation in England. That I'm sure of. ...
T. S. Eliot From 1898 to 1905, Eliot attended Smith Academy, where his studies included Latin, Ancient Greek, French, and German. He began to write poetry when he was fourteen under the influence of Edward Fitzgerald's "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", a translation of the poetry of Omar Khayyam. He said the results were gloomy and despairing and he destroyed them. His first published poem, "A Fable For Feasters", was written as a school exercise and was published in the "Smith Academy Record" in February 1905. Also published there in April 1905 was his oldest surviving poem in manuscript, an untitled lyric, later revised