of the famous modernist poets was t.s. eliot. born in missouri, which he quickly left and spent most of his adult life in europe. one of his most famous poems, he implemented a recurring theme that basically says, we can't know what another person is actually saying or what they mean. so in this poem, one of his most famous "the love song of j. alfred prufrock" -- the story, it appears, the rambling thoughts of the middle-aged man. this is the impression that his left. the opening lines are somewhat famous. it begins -- we have little bits of it here. it begins, let us go then, you and i win the evening is spread out against the sky like a patient he theorized on the table. it goes on, i have seen the eternal footman hold my coat and snicker and in short, i was afraid. what i want to draw our attention to is how he keeps coming back to this theme. for instance when he writes -- if one settling the pillow by her head should say, that is not what i meant at all, that is not it at all. and a little later -- it is impossible to say j

oppenheimer comes in and he invited t.s. eliot. the position i had was created for t.s. eliot. the strange outside artist who is allowed to come in and do something that doesn't belong to one of the schools. and now they have a school of biology. it was a rich place. von neumann coming in the first place -- he didn't come alone. he came went eugene regner. at that time, they were not hiring jewish professors. so they couldn't really higher von neumann flat out, but they found a loophole. there was no problem. they could hire to hungary and's halftime. they could not hire one hunger and gary and full-time, but they could hire to halftime. so they offer them this half-time position which is 10 times you could make in europe that is how they got both of those guys at once. >> we are going to skip ahead to just slightly, because i wanted to talk about how he wound up in los alamos. >> everybody wound up in los alamos. [laughter] there was a train from new jersey to los alamos. he didn't stay there. he was transient. he had so much going on. if you went to less elements, you did not

american poets like ezra pound william carlos williams, t.s. eliot all reflect the rise of modernism in american poetry. one very quick example is william carlos williams, very famous poem "the red wheelbarrow," 1923. i will go ahead and read all of it. here it goes. so much depends on a red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater beside the chickens. right? so much depends? what, exactly, he doesn't say. it is not clear. that is part of the point here. another of the famous modernist poets was t.s. elliott. born in missouri, which he quickly left and spent most of his adult life in europe. one of his most famous poems, he implemented a recurring theme that basically says, we can't know what another person is actually saying or what they mean. so in this poem, one of his most famous, "the love song of j alfred prufrock," the story, it appears, the rambling thoughts of the middle-aged man. the opening lines are somewhat famous. it begins, let us go then, you and i, when the evening is spread out against the sky like a patient on a table. it goes on, i have