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
Bayard Taylor
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…
“Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge.”
James Bayard Taylor was born on 11 January 1825 in Kennett Township, near Kennett Square in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and died on 19 December 1878 in Berlin, Germany. During his lifetime he was among the most visible American men of letters: a poet, novelist, journalist, lecturer, travel writer, editor, translator, and, briefly, a diplomat. His fame was immense by the standards of his day. Audiences crowded his l…
“People can't see that if I had not been a poet, I could never have had such success as a traveler.”
About 1,003 km separate Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada from Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, 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. Bayard Taylor: kennett township, chester county, ximena; or, the battle of the sierra morena, views a-foot, eldorado; or, adventures in the path of empire, the story of kennett, the bedouin song, quaker farming family.
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. Bayard Taylor: Despair, Sorrow, Spirituality.
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