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.
Mina Loy
Emma Lazarus
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
In the vibrant landscape of early twentieth-century modernism, where voices like Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and Gertrude Stein commanded attention, another figure moved through the artistic circles of London, Paris, and New York with equal brilliance but less recognition. Mina Loy (1882-1966) was a poet, artist, actress, and feminist whose radical verse challenged conventional notions of femininity, sexuality, and poeti…
“You prefer to observe the past on which your eyes are already opened.”
Emma Lazarus was born in New York City on 22 July 1849 and died there on 19 November 1887, only thirty-eight years later. Her name is now inseparable from “The New Colossus,” the sonnet whose plea for the world’s “tired,” “poor,” and “huddled masses” has become the verbal companion to the Statue of Liberty. Yet the familiarity of those lines has often obscured the larger achievement of the woman who wrote them. Lazar…
“Poetry must be simple, sensuous, or impassioned.”
About 5,570 km separate London, England from New York City, New York, 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.
Mina Loy: hamstead, london, ezra pound, t.s. eliot, gertrude stein, stephen haweis, filippo tommaso marinetti, love songs. Emma Lazarus: new york city, the new colossus, moses lazarus, esther nathan, admetus and other poems, alide: an episode of goethe’s life, the spagnoletto, william cullen bryant.
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.
Mina Loy: Wonder, Longing, Spirituality. Emma Lazarus: Longing, Spirituality, Wonder.
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