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.
Trumbull Stickney
John Banister Tabb
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
Joseph Trumbull Stickney, known almost always as Trumbull Stickney, was born on 20 June 1874 in Geneva, Switzerland, and died in Boston on 11 October 1904. His brief life, ending when he was only thirty, has encouraged the familiar image of the doomed young poet whose promise exceeds his surviving achievement. That image is not wholly wrong, but it is too simple. Stickney was not merely a promising lyricist interrupt…
“There's nothing to get out of life; there are ways to live it.”
In the world of American poetry, few figures embody such remarkable contrasts as John Banister Tabb (March 22, 1845 – November 19, 1909), a man whose life journey carried him from the battlefields of the Confederacy to the quiet halls of a Catholic seminary, from the drawing rooms of Virginia aristocracy to a prison cell where poetry first awakened in his soul. Known affectionately as "Father Tabb" throughout his lat…
“I am not surprised that you, who are sojourning in a land where the cat was once worshiped, should desire to hear the mews (Muse) of the Tabb-y.”
About 6,718 km separate Geneva, Switzerland from Amelia County, Virginia, 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.
Trumbull Stickney: geneva, boston, harvard college, william vaughn moody, george santayana, dramatic lyrics, greek tragedy, american school of classical studies. John Banister Tabb: the forest, father tabb, sidney lanier, catholic seminary, american civil war, blockade runner, point lookout, alfred curtis.
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.
Trumbull Stickney: Spirituality, Wonder, Longing. John Banister Tabb: Wonder, Longing, Tenderness.
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