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.
Lydia Huntley Sigourney
Emily Dickinson
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
Lydia Huntley Sigourney, born Lydia Howard Huntley on 1 September 1791 in Norwich, Connecticut, became one of the most widely read, industrious, and culturally influential American writers of the nineteenth century. During the height of her career, her poems were printed in newspapers and magazines, memorized by schoolchildren, recited at funerals, quoted from pulpits, and displayed in family albums. She wrote for re…
“The Sabbath is the golden clasp that binds together the volume of the week.”
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born on 10 December 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, and died there on 15 May 1886. During her lifetime she was known, if at all beyond her immediate circle, as the daughter of a prominent local family, an unusually lively correspondent, a gardener, and eventually a woman who lived with increasing privacy. After her death, she emerged as one of the most startling and essential poets in th…
“My friends are my estate.”
About 101 km separate Norwich, Connecticut, USA from Amherst, 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.
Lydia Huntley Sigourney: norwich, connecticut, sweet singer of hartford, moral pieces, traits of the aborigines of america, indian names, charles sigourney, daniel wadsworth. Emily Dickinson: amherst, massachusetts, edward dickinson, susan gilbert, because i could not stop for death, fascicles, mount holyoke female seminary, civil war.
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.
Lydia Huntley Sigourney: Sorrow, Despair, Spirituality. Emily Dickinson: Wonder, Spirituality, Longing.
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