What is the name of the fictional poet who wrote the epigraph of The Great Gatsby?

The fictional poet who wrote the epigraph of The Great Gatsby is Thomas Parke D'Invilliers. The name appears beneath the short poem beginning “Then wear the gold hat,” which serves as the novel’s epigraph.

D'Invilliers is not a historical poet. Fitzgerald created him as a character and pen name in his earlier novel, This Side of Paradise, published in 1920. In that book, D'Invilliers is a poet and Princeton acquaintance of the protagonist, Amory Blaine. Fitzgerald based aspects of the character on his Princeton friend, poet John Peale Bishop.

The epigraph’s fictional attribution is an easy detail to confuse with a real literary reference. The poem sounds like a stylized romantic challenge, but its author is part of Fitzgerald’s invented world. Thomas Parke D'Invilliers also connects The Great Gatsby to Fitzgerald’s earlier fiction and to his recurring interest in poets, performance, and self-invention.