Fellows in American Letters of the Library of Congress
The Fellows in American Letters of the Library of Congress are awarded by the Library of Congress.
History
In 1943, during his tenure as
In 1944, MacLeish stepped down as Librarian and Tate's term expired. MacLeish's successor, non-poet Luther H. Evans (1945–1953), relied on Tate to serve as an ongoing consultant and recommend candidates to fill the Poetry Consultant position. Among those Tate recommended to become Consultant were his old friend and colleague Robert Penn Warren (1944–1945), Louise Bogan (1945–1946), Shapiro (1946–1947), Robert Lowell (1947–1948), Léonie Adams (1948–1949), Elizabeth Bishop (1949–1950), and Aiken (1950–1952). Most Consultants accepted invitations to become Fellows when their terms expired.
The Fellows may be best known for the controversy created in 1948-1949 over the newly established Bollingen Prize which was to be awarded by the Library of Congress upon the recommendation of a jury consisting of a committee of the Fellows. Eliot and other renowned poets who felt a great debt to Ezra Pound planned to use the prize to build a momentum to free Pound, then confined in St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, where he had been confined after being charged with treason but declared mentally unfit to stand trial.
Pound was awarded the prize for