The Clerk's Journal

Conrad Aiken

1971

The long poem of 1911, written while Aiken was at Harvard. Here, Conrad Aiken finds his subject and vocation–at the same time as his friend T. S. Eliot.

"The first printing of Aiken's first successful poem."
–Virginia Quarterly Review

I lunched today at a certain spa,
A justly far-famed eating-joint
Whose management has made a point
That every waitress be a star.
Revolving on a shiny stool
I sat and ate my plate of beans–
And felt ineffably a fool
Among that galaxy of queens.
–Conrad Aiken