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.
Watcyn Wyn
William Barnes
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 rolling hills of Carmarthenshire, where the coal dust mingles with morning mist and the Welsh language flows like the streams that carve the valleys, a remarkable story unfolded in the latter half of the nineteenth century. It is the story of Watkin Hezekiah Williams, better known by his bardic name Watcyn Wyn, whose journey from the depths of coal mines to the heights of Welsh literary achievement embodies th…
“You can add nothing but anxiety by worrying.”
In the gentle folds of Dorset's Blackmore Vale, where the River Stour meanders through meadows fringed with ancient oaks and the air hums with the songs of larks and the lowing of cattle, a voice arose that would forever capture the heartbeat of rural England. William Barnes, born on February 22, 1801, at Rushay Farm in the hamlet of Bagber near Sturminster Newton, emerged from humble farming stock to become one of t…
“The beautiful in Nature is the unmarred result of God's first creative or forming will, and the beautiful in Art is the result of an unmistaken working of man in accordance with the beautiful in Nature.”
About 164 km separate Ddolgam, Carmarthenshire, Wales from Bagber, Dorset, England. Shared ground: United Kingdom.
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Watcyn Wyn: carmarthenshire, ddolgam, cwmgarw ganol, brynaman, mary jones, evan williams, j. j. copeland, gibea chapel. William Barnes: dorset, blackmore vale, rural life in the dorset dialect, julia miles, thomas hardy, the honest thief, hwomely rhymes, my orcha'd in linden lea.
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.
Watcyn Wyn: Wonder, Peace, Spirituality. William Barnes: Peace, Joy, Tenderness.
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