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.
Eugene Field
Louis Untermeyer
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 pantheon of American literature, few figures occupy such a unique and enduring position as Eugene Field, the beloved "Children's Poet" whose gentle verses about childhood, dreams, and imagination have captivated readers for over a century. Born into the rough-and-tumble world of frontier America and dying at the height of the Gilded Age, Field's life spanned a transformative period in American history, yet his…
“I do not love all children.”
In the sprawling landscape of twentieth-century American letters, few figures cast as long or as peculiar a shadow as Louis Untermeyer. Born on October 1, 1885, in New York City, and dying ninety-two years later on December 18, 1977, in Newtown, Connecticut, Untermeyer occupied a unique position in American cultural life. He was not primarily remembered as a great poet himself, though he published volumes of verse. H…
“It is the non-conformers, the innovators in art, science, technology, and human relations who, misunderstood and ridiculed in their own times, have shaped our world.”
About 1,402 km separate St. Louis, Missouri, USA 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.
Eugene Field: st. louis, gilded age, roswell field, frances reed field, mary field french, williams college, knox college, st. joseph gazette. Louis Untermeyer: new york city, newtown, connecticut, modern american poetry, harriet monroe, ezra pound, t.s. eliot, carl sandburg, robert frost.
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.
Eugene Field: Tenderness, Joy, Wonder. Louis Untermeyer: Despair, Sorrow, Longing.
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