Compare Poets

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.

Poet A

Myra Viola Wilds

Poet B

Emily Dickinson

Compare two related contemporaries

A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.

Kindred spirits

Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.

Biography 75% Poems 85% Blended 80%

Swap sides Another related pair

Myra Viola Wilds

c. 1880 – c. 1935 (~55)

2 live poems · English

Myra Viola Wilds, born about 1880 and believed to have died about 1935, occupies an unusual and moving place in the history of American poetry. Her surviving reputation rests principally on a single small book, Thoughts of Idle Hours, published in 1915, yet the modest scale of that achievement should not obscure its significance. Wilds was a Kentucky-born poet, a dressmaker, a woman with limited formal education, and…

“I send out my first little book trusting it may find kind, considerate friends.”

Neighbourhood: African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Women Poets

Emotional landscape: Wonder, Peace, Spirituality

Listen Timeline Affinities

Emily Dickinson

10 December 1830 – 15 May 1886 (~56)

185 live poems · English

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born on 10 December 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, and died there on 15 May 1886. During her lifetime she was known, if at all beyond her immediate circle, as the daughter of a prominent local family, an unusually lively correspondent, a gardener, and eventually a woman who lived with increasing privacy. After her death, she emerged as one of the most startling and essential poets in th…

“Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Confessional Poets, Death & Mortality, Women Poets

Emotional landscape: Wonder, Spirituality, Longing

Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Myra Viola Wilds

Emily Dickinson

1830 1935

They overlapped for 7 years (1880–1886). When Myra Viola Wilds was born, Emily Dickinson was about 50. Myra Viola Wilds was about 6 when Emily Dickinson died.

Myra Viola Wilds in history Emily Dickinson in history Years they were given

On the map

About 1,068 km separate Mount Ollie, Kentucky, USA from Amherst, Massachusetts, USA. Shared ground: United States.

Myra Viola Wilds

Emily Dickinson

Open both on the History Atlas

Themes they return to

Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.

Shared

love life self

Myra Viola Wilds only

wilds mind grass roots dewdrops light gems

Emily Dickinson only

world death nature divine spiritual soul suffering religious social pain bird desire

From the biographies

Myra Viola Wilds: mount ollie, kentucky, thoughts of idle hours, blindness, dressmaker, 1915 publication, sunshine, limited education. Emily Dickinson: amherst, massachusetts, edward dickinson, susan gilbert, because i could not stop for death, fascicles, mount holyoke female seminary, civil war.

Poems that secretly rhyme

The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.

Dewdrops

Myra Viola Wilds

78% life

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Psalm of the Day

Emily Dickinson

Dewdrops

Myra Viola Wilds

78% life

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So bashful when I spied her

Emily Dickinson

Dewdrops

Myra Viola Wilds

77%

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Pink—small—and punctual

Emily Dickinson

Dewdrops

Myra Viola Wilds

76% life

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If I can stop one heart from breaking

Emily Dickinson

Thoughts

Myra Viola Wilds

76%

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Much madness is divinest sense

Emily Dickinson

Dewdrops

Myra Viola Wilds

76% life

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New feet within my garden go

Emily Dickinson

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1882 Nietzsche Declares 'God is Dead'

1882 Robert Koch Discovers the Tuberculosis Bacillus

1883 Emil Christian Hansen Isolates a Pure Yeast Culture at Carlsberg

1883 Friedrich Nietzsche Publishes 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra'

1883 Publication of 'Treasure Island'

1884 Oxford English Dictionary Begins Publication

1884 Publication of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'

1885 Pasteur Successfully Tests the Rabies Vaccine

Myra Viola Wilds

1880 Early Life in Mount Ollie, Kentucky

1911 Career as a Dressmaker

1911 Loss of Sight and Shift to Poetry

1915 Preface to 'Thoughts of Idle Hours'

1915 Publication of 'Thoughts of Idle Hours'

Emily Dickinson

1840 Emily Dickinson Enters Amherst Academy

1844 Death of Second Cousin Sophia Holland

1847 Religious Crisis and 'No-Hoper' Status at Mount Holyoke

1855 First and Only Extended Journey: Washington and Philadelphia

1858 Beginning of Fascicle-Making: Formal Copying of Poems

1862 Emily Dickinson Begins Corresponding with Thomas Wentworth Higginson

1886 Discovery and Initial Editing of Poems Posthumously

1886 Emily Dickinson's Posthumous Discovery by Sister Lavinia

Emotional landscapes

Myra Viola Wilds: Wonder, Peace, Spirituality. Emily Dickinson: Wonder, Spirituality, Longing.

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Compare Poets

Poet A

Poet B

Myra Viola Wilds

Emily Dickinson

In time

On the map

Myra Viola Wilds

Emily Dickinson

Themes they return to

Shared

Myra Viola Wilds only

Emily Dickinson only

From the biographies

Poems that secretly rhyme

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Myra Viola Wilds

Emily Dickinson

Emotional landscapes