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

Edgar A. Guest Edgar A. Guest

Poet B

Sam Walter Foss Sam Walter Foss
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 79% Blended 79%
Swap sides Another related pair
Edgar A. Guest

Edgar A. Guest

20 August 1881 – 5 August 1959 (~78)
21 live poems · English

Edgar Albert Guest was born in Birmingham, England, on 20 August 1881, and died in Detroit, Michigan, on 5 August 1959, fifteen days before his seventy-eighth birthday. During much of his long life, he was among the most familiar poets in the United States. His name appeared daily in newspapers, his verses were memorized in schools and recited at civic meetings, and his books sold in quantities that many more critica…

“In time of great peril they dared to die, together, their arms about each other's shoulders, the four speaking the common prayer that unites us all.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Children's Verse, Edwardian Poets, Light Verse Poets
Emotional landscape: Joy, Tenderness, Peace
Sam Walter Foss

Sam Walter Foss

19 June 1858 – 26 February 1911 (~53)
1 live poem · English

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…

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Children's Verse, Edwardian Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Peace, Joy

In time

Edgar A. Guest
Sam Walter Foss
1858 1959
They overlapped for 31 years (1881–1911). When Edgar A. Guest was born, Sam Walter Foss was about 23. Edgar A. Guest was about 30 when Sam Walter Foss died.

On the map

About 5,084 km separate Birmingham, England from Candia, New Hampshire, USA. Shared ground: United Kingdom, 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

From the biographies

culture civic

Edgar A. Guest: birmingham, detroit, people's poet, a heap o' livin', just folks, the path to home, it couldn't be done, nellie crossman. 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.

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.

My Goals
Edgar A. Guest
78% self, life
Compare
The House by the Side of the Road
Sam Walter Foss
Rich or Poor
Edgar A. Guest
78%
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The House by the Side of the Road
Sam Walter Foss
See It Through
Edgar A. Guest
76% self
Compare
The House by the Side of the Road
Sam Walter Foss
Dreams
Edgar A. Guest
75% life
Compare
The House by the Side of the Road
Sam Walter Foss

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Edgar A. Guest: Joy, Tenderness, Peace. Sam Walter Foss: Tenderness, Peace, Joy.

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