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.
Fannie Isabel Sherrick
Richard Henry Dana
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 literary landscape of late 19th-century America, when poetry held a cherished place in popular culture and women writers were beginning to claim their voices with increasing confidence, Fannie Isabelle Sherrick emerged as a notable figure whose work captured the hearts and minds of her contemporaries. Born on May 31st (likely in the 1850s based on genealogical records) and active from approximately 186…
“To whose encouragement much of my success in literature is due”
Richard Henry Dana, born on 15 November 1787 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and dead there on 2 February 1879, belonged to the first generation of American writers who attempted to make literature in the young republic something more than a colonial echo of English models. He was a poet, critic, editor, lawyer, lecturer, and influential member of Boston’s literary world. Yet he has long occupied an unstable place in li…
“There was certainly some mistake about the time of my birth—I'm an impersonated Anachronism.”
About 999 km separate Ohio, United States from Boston, Massachusetts, 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.
Fannie Isabel Sherrick: st. louis, ohio, ella wheeler wilcox, love or fame and other poems, i can not say the sad good-bye, gilded age, romantic poetry, philosophical poetry. Richard Henry Dana: massachusetts, the buccaneer, two years before the mast, ruth charlotte smith, anthology club, harvard college, francis dana, elizabeth ellery dana.
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.
Fannie Isabel Sherrick: Sorrow, Longing, Despair. Richard Henry Dana: Sorrow, Despair, Longing.
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