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For a poet of his stature, Eliot produced relatively few poems. He was aware of this even early in his career; he wrote to J. H. Woods, one of his former Harvard professors, "My reputation in London is built upon one small volume of verse, and is kept up by printing two or three more poems in a year. The only thing that matters is that these should be perfect in their kind, so that each should be an event."

Typically, Eliot first published his poems individually in periodicals or in small books or pamphlets and then collected them in books. His first collection was Prufrock and Other Observations (1917). In 1920, he published more poems in Ara Vos Prec (London) and Poems: 1920 (New York). These collections had the same poems (in a different order) except that "Ode" in the British edition was replaced with "Hysteria" in the American edition.

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. ... It wouldn't be what it is, and I imagine it wouldn't be so good; putting it as modestly as I can, it wouldn't be what it is if I'd been born in England, and it wouldn't be what it is if I'd stayed in America. It's a combination of things. But in its sources, in its emotional springs, it comes from America."

The stand-out poem from Eliot's second collection is "Gerontion". The title is Greek for "little old man," and the poem is an interior monologue relating the opinions and impressions of an elderly man, which describes Europe after World War I through the eyes of a man who has lived most of his life in the 19th century. Two years after it was published, Eliot considered including the poem as a preface to "The Waste Land", but was talked out of this by Ezra Pound: "I do not advise printing Gerontion as preface. One don't miss it at all as the thing now stands. To be more lucid still, let me say that I advise you NOT to print Gerontion as prelude." (Ezra Pound, the man you are. THANK YOU. I mean, I love "Gerontin" but it does not belong before "The Waste Land", which so excellently stands on its own and is in a league of its own.)

"Gerontion" is one of the handful of poems that Eliot composed between the end of World War I in 1918 and his work on "The Waste Land" in 1921. During that time, Eliot was working at Lloyds Bank and editing The Egoist, devoting most of his literary energy to writing review articles for periodicals. When he published the two collections in February, 1920 Ara Vos Prec, "Gerontion" was almost the only poem he had never offered to the public before and was placed first in both volumes.

Two earlier versions of the poem can be found, the original typescript of the poem as well as that version with comments by Ezra Pound. In the typescript, the name of the poem is "Gerousia", referring to the name of the Council of the Elders at Sparta.

"Gerontion" opens with an epigraph (from Shakespeare's play Measure for Measure—which is literally my favorite Shakespeare play!!!) which states: "Thou hast nor youth nor age / But as it were an after dinner sleep / Dreaming of both".

Many of the themes within "Gerontion" are present throughout Eliot's later works, especially within "The Waste Land". This is especially true of the internal struggle within the poem and the narrator's "waiting for rain". Time is also altered by allowing past and present to be superimposed, and a series of places and characters connected to various cultures are introduced.

Kazin suggests that in lines 33�36 the poem attempts to show how Eliot tells his generation that history is "nothing but human depravity": "After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now / History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors / And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions, / Guides us by vanities." HULLOOO??? Relevant much??? Accurate much??

The phrase "wilderness of mirrors" from the poem has been alluded to by many other writers and artists. It has been used as the titles of plays by Van Badham and Charles Evered, of novels by Max Frisch, and of albums by bands such as Waysted. Another prominent line in the poem, "In depraved May, dogwood and chestnut, flowering judas / To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk", is the origin of the title of Katherine Anne Porter's first collection of short stories, Flowering Judas and Other Stories (1930). Thomas Stearns, the influencer you were. <3