Pick two poets who seem to have nothing to do with each other — a Gothic American and a pastoral Englishman, say — and see where the catalogue actually joins them: overlapping years, shared ground, distinctive themes, and the poems that secretly rhyme.
Bliss Carman
Douglas Malloch
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
William Bliss Carman, known throughout his literary life as Bliss Carman, was born on 15 April 1861 in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and died on 8 June 1929 in New Canaan, Connecticut. For several decades around the turn of the twentieth century, he was among the most widely read poets associated with Canada. He enjoyed an international reputation unusual for a Canadian writer of his generation, published extensively i…
“The greatest poem is not that which is written, but that which is lived.”
Douglas Malloch was born on 5 May 1877 in Muskegon, Michigan, a city whose identity had been built in large measure from timber, water, sawmills, ships, and the difficult labor of turning northern forests into the materials of American expansion. He died on 2 July 1938, leaving behind a body of verse that was once widely circulated in newspapers, trade journals, recitation books, schoolrooms, and inspirational anthol…
“The difference between a stepping-stone and a stumbling block is how high you raise your foot.”
About 1,578 km separate Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada from Muskegon, Michigan, USA. Shared ground: United States.
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Bliss Carman: fredericton, new brunswick, low tide on grand pré, songs from vagabondia, richard hovey, sappho: one hundred lyrics, the joys of the road, mary perry king. Douglas Malloch: muskegon, lumbermen's poet, be the best of whatever you are, the passing of the pine, great lakes region, american lumberman, progressive era, regional poet.
The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.
Notable events from the years they were both alive.
Bliss Carman: Spirituality, Wonder, Peace. Douglas Malloch: Tenderness, Peace, Spirituality.
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