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.
Franklin P. Adams
Jessie R. Fauset
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
Franklin Pierce Adams, known almost everywhere in print by the compact and memorable signature “F. P. A.,” was born in Chicago, Illinois, on 15 November 1881, and died in New York City on 23 March 1960. During the first half of the twentieth century, he became one of America’s most recognizable newspaper humorists, a poet of urbane light verse, an editor, anthologist, critic, and central presence in the literary soci…
“To err is human; to forgive, infrequent.”
Jessie Redmon Fauset entered the world on April 27, 1882, in the small community of Fredericksville—now known as Lawnside—in Camden County, New Jersey. She was the seventh child born to Redmon Fauset, a respected African Methodist Episcopal minister, and his wife Annie Seamon Fauset. Tragedy struck early when Annie died while Jessie was still a young girl, leaving a void that her father filled with unwavering devotio…
“I like Paris because I find something here, something of integrity, which I seem to have strangely lost in my own country. It is simplest of all to say that I like to live among people and surroundings where I am not always conscious of 'thou shall not.”
About 1,087 km separate Chicago, Illinois, USA from Fredericksville, New Jersey, 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.
No overlapping top terms in the poem critiques — any kinship may sit in mood rather than vocabulary.
Franklin P. Adams: chicago, new york city, f. p. a., baseball's sad lexicon, the conning tower, algonquin round table, in cupid's court, tobogganing on parnassus. Jessie R. Fauset: fredericksville, lawnside, camden county, m. carey thomas, cornell university, the crisis, w.e.b. du bois, there is confusion.
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.
Franklin P. Adams: Irony, Longing, Sorrow. Jessie R. Fauset: Sorrow, Despair, Longing.
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