Given Distinguished Poetry Post

ONE Dartmouth alumnus will succeed another in the distinguished post of Consultant in Poetry in English to the Library of Congress. Richard Eberhart '26, Professor of English and Poet in Residence at Dartmouth, has been appointed for a one-year term beginning in the fall of 1959, succeeding Robert Frost '96, who holds the position at present.

The Library established the post of Consultant in Poetry in English in 1936 to advise its staff on improving its collections of literature and to aid in acquiring important manuscripts from authors and editors. Professor Eberhart will be available to confer with scholars and poets using these collections, and he will provide editorial supervision for the Library's program of recording 20th Century poets reading their own works.

Richard Eberhart started writing poetry when he was fifteen, and continued writing in college. Now, having returned to Dartmouth to teach, he has aided many others, mostly those who wish to dip, while they yet may, into the rich lyrical realm of creation, but some of whom may someday follow in his footsteps. He conducts a freshman seminar in poetry and several advanced creative writing courses, and it is considered a singular honor for a student to be able to say of the poetry he has written, "Richard Eberhart liked it."

Born in Austin, Minn., in 1904, Richard Eberhart graduated from Dartmouth in 1926, worked his way around the world on a freighter, and then went on to attend Cambridge University in England, where he received a B.A. in 1929 and an M.A. in 1932. During this period he spent one year as tutor to the son of King Prajadhipok of Siam. He also studied at the Harvard Graduate School in 1932-33, and from then until 1941 he was a Master in English at St. Mark's School, Southborough, Mass.

During the war he served in the U.S. Naval Reserve, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. Upon discharge he returned to civilian life as assistant manager and later vice-president of the Butcher Polish Co. in Boston. In 1952 he returned to teaching and was poet in residence or visiting professor at the University of Washington, the University of Connecticut, Wheaton College, and Princeton University. In 1956 he assumed his present post at Dartmouth, which had conferred upon him its honorary Doctorate of Letters in 1954.

Richard Eberhart's first book, ABravery of Earth, appeared in 1930, and two more of his books of poetry, Reading the Spirit and Song and Idea were published before the war. While he was in the Navy his Poems, Newand Selected appeared in the "Poets of the Year" series of New Directions (1944); and at the close- of the war he joined Selden Rodman in editing Warand the Poet, an "anthology of poetry expressing man's attitudes to war from ancient times to the present."

A new volume of his poetry, BurrOaks, appeared in 1947 and his Selected Poems was published in 1951. Two other books containing a single long poem each, entitled Brotherhoodof Men and An Herb Basket, came out in 1949 and 1950; and his most recent books were Undercliff: Poems 1946-53 and Great Praises, which were published in 1954 and 1957.

Among the many awards he has received are the Guarantors Prize of Poetry Magazine (1946), The Harriet Monroe Memorial Prize (1950), the Shelley Memorial Prize of the Poetry Society of America (1951), and a grant from the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1955.

He "who once was called a "wild man with words" lives quietly with his wife and two children on Webster Terrace in Hanover.

Richard Eberhart '26