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 in the English language while others thought it was esoteric and wilfully difficult. Edmund Wilson, being one of the critics who praised Eliot, called him "one of our only authentic poets". Wilson also pointed out some of Eliot's weaknesses as a poet. In regard to "The Waste Land", Wilson admits its flaws ("its lack of structural unity"), but concluded, "I doubt whether there is a single other poem of equal length by a contemporary American which displays so high and so varied a mastery of English verse." Charles Powell was negative in his criticism of Eliot, calling his poems incomprehensible.