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

Witter Bynner Witter Bynner

Poet B

Howard Phelps Putnam Howard Phelps Putnam
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.

Kindred spirits
Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.
Biography 74% Poems 84% Blended 79%
Swap sides Another related pair
Witter Bynner

Witter Bynner

10 August 1881 – 1 June 1968 (~87)
4 live poems · English

Harold Witter Bynner, who published almost always as Witter Bynner and was known to friends as “Hal,” was born on 10 August 1881 in Brooklyn, New York, and died on 1 June 1968 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His long career carried him through several distinct literary eras: the cultivated, metrically formal verse of the early twentieth century; the disruptions and provocations of modernism; the American enthusiasm for Asia…

“Chinese poems reflect this deep devotion of their authors to the good of the State—their unwavering allegiance to righteousness, even when it meant demotion or exile or death.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Imagist Poets, LGBTQ+ Poets, Modernist Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Longing, Spirituality
Howard Phelps Putnam

Howard Phelps Putnam

1894 – 3 July 1948 (~54)
2 live poems · English

Howard Phelps Putnam was born in 1894 in Allston, Massachusetts, then a distinctly suburban and semi-rural part of Boston, and died on July 3, 1948, in Jamaica Plain. He belonged to the generation of American writers formed between the confident cultural inheritance of the nineteenth century and the disillusioning modernity of the First World War. His reputation never became as large as those of several Yale contempo…

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Death & Mortality, Love Poets, Modernist Poets, Nature Poets
Emotional landscape: Irony, Longing, Fear

In time

Witter Bynner
Howard Phelps Putnam
1881 1968
They overlapped for 55 years (1894–1948). When Howard Phelps Putnam was born, Witter Bynner was about 13. Witter Bynner was about 67 when Howard Phelps Putnam died.

On the map

About 304 km separate Brooklyn, New York, USA from Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Shared ground: United States.

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

gave social

Witter Bynner: brooklyn, santa fe, harvard university, young harvard, grenstone poems, spectrism, emanuel morgan, kiang kang-hu. Howard Phelps Putnam: allston, massachusetts, jamaica plain, trinc, the five seasons, the earthly comedy, harvard, massachusetts, skull and bones, stephen vincent benét.

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.

Romance
Witter Bynner
76% self
Compare
One Woman
Howard Phelps Putnam
Sands
Witter Bynner
74%
Compare
One Woman
Howard Phelps Putnam
Romance
Witter Bynner
72%
Compare
I Am an Atheist
Howard Phelps Putnam
Sands
Witter Bynner
68%
Compare
I Am an Atheist
Howard Phelps Putnam
Foam
Witter Bynner
68%
Compare
One Woman
Howard Phelps Putnam
Ganymede
Witter Bynner
67%
Compare
One Woman
Howard Phelps Putnam

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Witter Bynner: Wonder, Longing, Spirituality. Howard Phelps Putnam: Irony, Longing, Fear.

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