Sam Walter Foss was born on 19 June 1858 in Candia, New Hampshire, a small rural community whose fields, roads, churches, village shops, and close social networks supplied the emotional landscape of much of his later poetry. He died on 26 February 1911 in Somerville, Massachusetts, at the age of fifty-two. Between those dates he became one of the best-known popular poets in the United States, though not one of its mo…
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
Sam Walter Foss
Poet B
James Oppenheim
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 76%
Blended 76%
Swap sides
Another related pair
James Oppenheim, born on 24 May 1882 in St. Paul, Minnesota, and dead on 4 August 1932 in New York City, belonged to that fervent generation of American writers who wanted literature to enter the streets. He was a poet, novelist, editor, social observer, and eventually an interpreter of the psyche. His name is most often remembered through “Bread and Roses,” the ringing labor poem that gave memorable language to the…
“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.”
In time
Sam Walter Foss
James Oppenheim
1858
1932
They overlapped for 30 years (1882–1911).
When James Oppenheim was born, Sam Walter Foss was about 24.
James Oppenheim was about 29 when Sam Walter Foss died.
On the map
About 1,752 km separate Candia, New Hampshire, USA from St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. Shared ground: United States.
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
James Oppenheim only
From the biographies
social
culture
democratic
Sam Walter Foss: candia, new hampshire, somerville, massachusetts, back country poems, the house by the side of the road, brown university, phillips exeter academy, gilded age, progressive era. James Oppenheim: st. paul, minnesota, new york city, bread and roses, joseph oppenheim, lucy seckel, the nine-tenths, monday morning and other poems, hudson guild.
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.
The world around them
While their lives overlapped
Notable events from the years they were both alive.
Sam Walter Foss
James Oppenheim
Emotional landscapes
Sam Walter Foss: Tenderness, Peace, Joy. James Oppenheim: Anger, Longing, Sorrow.