Eiseley’s poetic publications, however, diminished during this time, and he ceased publishing poetry altogether shortly after taking his first teaching job, at the University of Kansas in 1937. from the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied under the eminent and mysteriously shamanistic professor, Frank Speck, a teacher Eiseley idealized and who became the subject of his essay “The Last Magician.” Among the many things Eiseley learned from Speck was that a sense of wonder and mystery was not incompatible with rigorous scientific inquiry. In short, as a young man Eiseley was immersed in the lively poetry world of the 1920s and 30s and poised to become an important voice in that world.Įiseley graduated (after 8 years) with dual bachelor’s degrees in English and Anthropology and chose to pursue graduate studies in Anthropology, eventually receiving his Ph.D. And, not limited to his own school’s journal, his poems were published in a variety of other venues, even in Harriet Monroe’s prestigious Poetry magazine during the era when it was publishing the likes of Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, W.

Most notably, his work appeared in the earliest editions of Prairie Schooner, whose editorial staff he joined in 1927, the year after it began publication under the guidance of Lowry Wimberly. However in his early years as an undergraduate at the University of Nebraska Eiseley had the reputation as an important and promising poet, and he published poetry in a range of literary journals.

Loren Eiseley’s literary reputation today rests almost exclusively on the significance of his nonfiction nature essays, which deservedly stand as influential exemplars of creative nonfiction science and nature writing. By Tom Lynch, Professor of English, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

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