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.
In the pantheon of early twentieth-century British poetry, certain voices echo through the decades with enduring resonance, while others fade into the margins of literary history despite their once-prominent positions. Robert Malise Bowyer Nichols belongs to this latter category—a poet whose name once commanded respect in literary circles, whose work appeared alongside that of his more famous contemporaries, yet whos…
“These poems form some slight memorial of an intimacy with Nature which War has destroyed since I now see Nature as the Great Indifferent.”
Neighbourhood:
Edwardian Poets, Georgian Poets, War Poets
In the annals of early twentieth-century English poetry, few voices captured the essence of maritime life with such authenticity and vigor as Cicely Fox Smith. Born on February 1, 1882, in Lymm, Cheshire, she would become one of the most distinctive poets of the sea, a woman who carved out a remarkable niche in a literary world dominated by male voices, particularly in the traditionally masculine domain of nautical v…
Neighbourhood:
Edwardian Poets, Folk & Ballad Poets, Georgian Poets
They overlapped for 52 years (1893–1944).
When Robert Nichols was born, Cicely Fox Smith was about 11.
Cicely Fox Smith was about 62 when Robert Nichols died.
Robert Nichols:
shanklin, isle of wight, john bowyer buchanan nichols, mary catherine nichols, invocation: war poems and others, aurelia and other poems, w.b. yeats, georgian poets.
Cicely Fox Smith:
lymm, cheshire, the naval crown, sailor town, sea songs and ballads, ship alley, the romance of the merchant ship, a book of famous ships.
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.
