Louis Untermeyer

ANECDOTE...

Untermeyer once returned his speaker's fee to a small and impoverished group and told them to put the money to good use. A little while later, he inquired about what "good use" they had found for the money and was told that they had put it into a "fund to get better speakers next year."

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE...
(1885–1977)
U.S. poet, writer, and anthologist. Untermeyer produced many volumes of poetry and critical writings. But he is best known for editing a number of poetry anthologies, includingModern American Poetry (1919), Modern British Poetry(1920), This Singing World (1923), Fifty Modern American and British Poets: 1920?1970 (1973), among others. The high quality of his own poetry and his talent as a parodist are best represented in his Selected Poems and Parodies(1935). His prose works include Lives of the Poets (1960) and several volumes of criticism.