Max Ehrmann was born on 26 September 1872 in Terre Haute, Indiana, and died there on 9 September 1945, seventeen days before his seventy-third birthday. He is remembered almost everywhere as the author of “Desiderata,” the compact prose poem beginning, “Go placidly amid the noise and haste,” but that single work represents only the most widely circulated part of a long, earnest, and sometimes overlooked literary life…
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
Max Ehrmann
Poet B
James Oppenheim
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 71%
Blended 71%
Swap sides
Another related pair
James Oppenheim, born on 24 May 1882 in St. Paul, Minnesota, and dead on 4 August 1932 in New York City, belonged to that fervent generation of American writers who wanted literature to enter the streets. He was a poet, novelist, editor, social observer, and eventually an interpreter of the psyche. His name is most often remembered through “Bread and Roses,” the ringing labor poem that gave memorable language to the…
“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.”
In time
Max Ehrmann
James Oppenheim
1872
1945
They overlapped for 51 years (1882–1932).
When James Oppenheim was born, Max Ehrmann was about 10.
Max Ehrmann was about 60 when James Oppenheim died.
On the map
About 768 km separate Terre Haute, Indiana, USA from St. Paul, Minnesota, 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
James Oppenheim only
From the biographies
culture
Max Ehrmann: terre haute, desiderata, bertha pratt king, depaul university, harvard university, delta tau delta, a fearsome riddle, the wife of marobius. James Oppenheim: st. paul, minnesota, new york city, bread and roses, joseph oppenheim, lucy seckel, the nine-tenths, monday morning and other poems, hudson guild.
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.
Max Ehrmann
James Oppenheim
Emotional landscapes
Max Ehrmann: Peace, Spirituality, Joy. James Oppenheim: Anger, Longing, Sorrow.