"Sun bathing, for instance": T.S. Eliot returns to his St. Louis hometown

St. Louis Today digs into the archives and tells the story of T.S. Eliot's visit to the city in 1933, the first time he'd been back to his hometown in almost two decades. Since he'd left, Eliot had written "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," "The Wasteland," and moved to London. Back in STL:

The famous poet toured his old neighborhoods. He told admirers he relaxed by reading detective stories, not serious novels. He claimed he didn't like to write.

"There are so many more pleasant things do to than writing — sun bathing, for instance," Thomas Stearns Eliot told St. Louis reporters on Jan. 16, 1933, during his first visit home in 19 years.

In his two day visit, he lectured on Shakespeare, talked about free verse ("you can be as free as you like"), and spoke to 900 people at Washington University's Graham Chapel (using a microphone, Eliot called it "the first time I've talked to so many people by telephone.")

Read the whole story here.