In 1943 Tate was appointed the first rotating Chair of Poetry at the Library of Congress, where he established the Associate Fellows in American Letters. He initiated recordings of 16th and 17th century English lyrics and modern American poetry from Emily Dickinson to Karl Shapiro for Books for the Blind. He reviewed Shapiro's first book of poems, "Person, Place and Thing", for the magazine "Common Sense" in 1943, writing the review as a letter to Sgt. Shapiro, then stationed in Australia, mixing some compositional advice with high praise ("May I list here certain poems that for me are already placed among the best poetry of our time?"), and beginning a long friendship. Tate was known for his aid to talented younger writers: John Berryman, Joseph Frank, Robert Lowell, William Meredith, Howard Nemerov, Delmore Schwartz (known as "the Jewish Allen Tate"), and Peter Taylor.