UNTERMEYER, Louis

Robert Frost: A Backward Look

First edition. Stapled wrappers. Faint bend to the top of the wrappers, a very good plus dustwrapper. Inscribed by Untermeyer to Phyllis Armstrong, who served as assistant to both he and Frost when they served their respective terms as Consultant in Poetry at the Library of Congress: "for Phyllis as always, Louis 1964." Armstrong was the Assistant in Poetry at the Library of Congress where she bullied, cajoled and served the various poets who served as Poetry Consultant (later changed to Poet Laureate) for 24 years. She was appointed by Karl Shapiro in 1946 who said in retrospect that she handled, "one difficult poet after another, for which she deserved the Congressional Medal of Honor." A tall, chain-smoking, Canadian poet, she reminded Randall Jarrell of T.S. Eliot. She was inextricably bound-up with the history of that office. When questioned about his tenure, Howard Nemerov said: "I had no problems. I just did what Phyllis told me to do."

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