In the golden age of American newspaper poetry, when verses appeared on editorial pages alongside the day's news and readers clipped favorite stanzas to paste in scrapbooks, few voices resonated more warmly with the reading public than that of Nixon Waterman. Born on November 12, 1859, in the small prairie town of Newark, Illinois, Waterman would rise from humble agricultural beginnings to become one of the most wide…
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
Nixon Waterman
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 74%
Poems 83%
Blended 78%
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
Nixon Waterman
James Oppenheim
1859
1944
They overlapped for 51 years (1882–1932).
When James Oppenheim was born, Nixon Waterman was about 23.
Nixon Waterman was about 73 when James Oppenheim died.
On the map
About 527 km separate Newark, Illinois, 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
wanted
Nixon Waterman: newark, illinois, creston, iowa, chicago herald, small change, a rose to the living, opinion columns, ben king's verse, some home-made poems. 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.
Nixon Waterman
James Oppenheim
Emotional landscapes
Nixon Waterman: Longing, Sorrow, Despair. James Oppenheim: Anger, Longing, Sorrow.