Emanuel Morgan occupies one of the most unusual positions in American literary history: he was a poet who never existed in the ordinary biographical sense, yet whose poems, reputation, controversies, and afterlife have proved remarkably real. The dates commonly attached to him, 1916–1917, refer not to the span of a human life but to the brief public career of a deliberately invented authorial persona. “Emanuel Morgan…
Compare Poets
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.
Poet A
Emanuel Morgan
Poet B
Alfred Kreymborg
Compare two related contemporaries
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
Strongly related
Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.
Biography 68%
Blended 68%
Swap sides
Another related pair
In the early decades of the twentieth century, when American poetry was struggling to break free from the strictures of Victorian convention, a slight, chess-obsessed son of German immigrants emerged as one of the most influential figures in literary modernism. Alfred Kreymborg, born on December 10, 1883, in New York City, would become far more than a poet. He was a literary impresario, a talent scout with an uncanny…
“Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that the people who really enjoy chess are the dubs and the duffers, experts who have resigned their ambitions, those who play only for pastime, and, of course, the great fraternity of the kibbitzers.”
In time
Emanuel Morgan
Alfred Kreymborg
1883
1966
They overlapped for 2 years (1916–1917).
When Emanuel Morgan was born, Alfred Kreymborg was about 33.
Alfred Kreymborg was about 34 when Emanuel Morgan died.
On the map
About 0 km separate New York City, New York, USA from New York City, New York, USA. Both have ground in New York and New York City.
Themes they return to
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Shared
From the biographies
history
Emanuel Morgan: spectrism, witter bynner, arthur davison ficke, santa fe, harvard university, tao te ching, mock avant-garde, poetry society of america. Alfred Kreymborg: new york city, german immigrants, greenwich village, alfred stieglitz, the glebe, des imagistes, imagism, others: a magazine of the new verse.
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.
The world around them
While their lives overlapped
Notable events from the years they were both alive.
1916
Death in Battle
1916
Discovery of Heparin
1916
Execution and Legacy
Emanuel Morgan
Alfred Kreymborg
Emotional landscapes
Emanuel Morgan: Wonder, Spirituality, Longing. Alfred Kreymborg: Wonder, Longing, Spirituality.