Arthur Shearly Cripps was born on 10 June 1869, the son of Charles Alfred Cripps, later the first Baron Parmoor, and Theresa Potter Cripps. He belonged, by birth and education, to the privileged English world that supplied many of the administrators, clergy, soldiers, and writers of the British Empire. Yet the course of his life led him into a searching and often lonely quarrel with that world. He became an Anglican…
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
Arthur Shearly Cripps
Poet B
Countee Cullen
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 72%
Blended 72%
Swap sides
Another related pair
On May 30, 1903, a child was born who would become one of the most celebrated voices of the Harlem Renaissance, yet whose origins remain shrouded in the kind of mystery that seems almost poetic in retrospect. Countee Cullen's exact birthplace has been disputed—some records suggest New York City, others Louisville, Kentucky, and still others Baltimore, Maryland. This uncertainty about his origins would prove oddly fit…
“Good poetry is a lofty thought beautifully expressed. Poetry should not be too intellectual. It should deal more, I think, with the emotions. The highest type of poem is that which warmly stirs the emotions, which awakens a responsive chord in the human heart.”
In time
Arthur Shearly Cripps
Countee Cullen
1869
1952
They overlapped for 44 years (1903–1946).
When Countee Cullen was born, Arthur Shearly Cripps was about 34.
Arthur Shearly Cripps was about 77 when Countee Cullen died.
On the map
About 6,385 km separate Warwickshire, England from Louisville, Kentucky, USA. Different countries, different weather — unless a poem carries one landscape into the other.
Arthur Shearly Cripps
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
african
racial
Arthur Shearly Cripps: southern rhodesia, st faith’s mission, the black christ, africa for africans, first chimurenga, cecil rhodes, oxford movement, trinity college oxford. Countee Cullen: harlem renaissance, new york city, w.e.b. du bois, color, yet do i marvel, incident, copper sun, the ballad of the brown girl.
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.
Countee Cullen
Emotional landscapes
Arthur Shearly Cripps: Spirituality, Longing, Sorrow. Countee Cullen: Wonder, Spirituality, Tenderness.