Dartmouth is marking the 100th birthday of eminent poet Richard Eberhart '26 with a host of festivities, including a celebration renaming Sanborn Library's poetry reading room in his honor.
English professor Alan Gaylord spoke at a recent commemorative event, which also included readings of Eberhart's poetry by faculty and students.
Gaylord said after the event that Eberhart produced "a body of work that will last," and that his poetry included "striking examples of the white-hot fusion of passion and intellect."
Eberhart was born on April 5, 1904, in Austin, Minn. He enrolled at the University of Minnesota in 1921 but transferred to Dartmouth after his mother's death and the collapse of his father's business.
In an interview with The Connecticut Review, a literary publication, Eberhart explained that he transferred because of "the itch to move on."
"In those early years many of the businessmen in Austin had heard of Dartmouth, because Dartmouth was expanding and becoming a national institution. They were trying to find the bright young seniors throughout the middle west who would come to this place. Later on, I realized not a soul I knew in my hometown had ever heard or said anything about Harvard. Maybe I would have gone to Harvard if they had talked more about it," Eberhart said.
Eberhart began writing poetry in high school, often reflecting upon the rural setting of the forty-acre estate on which he spent his childhood.
"The Groundhog," one of Eberhart's most famous poems, contains many of his major themes and expresses his reaction to seeing a dead groundhog "seething" with maggots near Phoenix, Penn.
After graduating from Dartmouth, Eberhart studied at St. John's College of Cambridge, earning a second degree. He published his first book of poetry, "A Bravery of Earth," in 1931, and from 1931 to 1932 he tutored the son of the king of Siam.
Returning to the United States in 1932, Eberhart spent a year as a graduate student at Harvard University and then obtained a job teaching English at the St. Mark's School. He served in the U.S. Naval Reserve during World War II and worked for the family business of his wife for six years after the war.
Eberhart was named a professor of English and poet-in-residence at Dartmouth in 1956, where he taught until 1975.
He also served as a consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress and as the chair of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
He has won numerous awards and honors, including the Pulitzer Prize in 1965 for his book "Richard Eberhart: Selected Poems, 1930-1965" and the 1977 National Book Award for "Collected Poems, 1930-1976."
Eberhart currently resides in Hanover.
