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.
Amy Lowell
Julia Ward Howe
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
Amy Lawrence Lowell emerged from the staid drawing rooms of Boston's Brahmin society to become one of the most controversial and influential poets of early twentieth-century America. Born on February 9, 1874, into one of New England's most distinguished families, she would spend her fifty-one years challenging literary conventions, championing new poetic forms, and leaving an indelible mark on American literature. He…
“Poetry is the art of expressing the human soul in words.”
On a cold November morning in 1861, Julia Ward Howe awoke in her room at Willard's Hotel in Washington, D.C., with verses forming in her mind. She had visited Union Army camps the previous day, witnessing thousands of soldiers preparing for battle while singing "John Brown's Body." Now, in the pre-dawn darkness, words came to her with unusual clarity and force. Rising quietly so as not to disturb her sleeping childre…
“We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”
About 306 km separate Boston, Massachusetts, 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.
Amy Lowell: boston, imagist movement, ada dwyer russell, sword blades and poppy seed, patterns, the taxi, can grande's castle, tendencies in modern american poetry. Julia Ward Howe: washington d.c., battle hymn of the republic, john brown's body, passion flowers, samuel gridley howe, american woman suffrage association, mother's day proclamation, municipal housekeeping.
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.
Amy Lowell: Longing, Tenderness, Wonder. Julia Ward Howe: Irony, Sorrow, Spirituality.
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