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

Louis Untermeyer Louis Untermeyer

Poet B

Nixon Waterman Nixon Waterman
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 75% Poems 85% Blended 79%
Swap sides Another related pair
Louis Untermeyer

Louis Untermeyer

1 October 1885 – 18 December 1977 (~92)
3 live poems · English

In the sprawling landscape of twentieth-century American letters, few figures cast as long or as peculiar a shadow as Louis Untermeyer. Born on October 1, 1885, in New York City, and dying ninety-two years later on December 18, 1977, in Newtown, Connecticut, Untermeyer occupied a unique position in American cultural life. He was not primarily remembered as a great poet himself, though he published volumes of verse. H…

“Friendship is like love at its best; not blind but sympathetically all-seeing; a support which does not wait for understanding; an act of faith which does not need, but always has, reason.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Light Verse Poets, Modernist Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Longing
Nixon Waterman

Nixon Waterman

12 November 1859 – 1 September 1944 (~85)
3 live poems · English

In the golden age of American newspaper poetry, when verses appeared on editorial pages alongside the day's news and readers clipped favorite stanzas to paste in scrapbooks, few voices resonated more warmly with the reading public than that of Nixon Waterman. Born on November 12, 1859, in the small prairie town of Newark, Illinois, Waterman would rise from humble agricultural beginnings to become one of the most wide…

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Children's Verse, Edwardian Poets, Light Verse Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair

In time

Louis Untermeyer
Nixon Waterman
1859 1977
They overlapped for 60 years (1885–1944). When Louis Untermeyer was born, Nixon Waterman was about 26. Louis Untermeyer was about 59 when Nixon Waterman died.

On the map

About 1,223 km separate New York City, New York, USA from Newark, Illinois, 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

Louis Untermeyer: new york city, newtown, connecticut, modern american poetry, harriet monroe, ezra pound, t.s. eliot, carl sandburg, robert frost. Nixon Waterman: newark, illinois, creston, iowa, chicago herald, small change, a rose to the living, opinion columns, ben king's verse, some home-made poems.

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.

Implication
Louis Untermeyer
75% social
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An Idol of Clay
Nixon Waterman
Matter
Louis Untermeyer
73% world, life
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An Idol of Clay
Nixon Waterman
Matter
Louis Untermeyer
72%
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To-day
Nixon Waterman
Matter
Louis Untermeyer
70% life
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The Rose and the Lily
Nixon Waterman
Implication
Louis Untermeyer
70%
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To-day
Nixon Waterman
Caliban in the Coal Mines
Louis Untermeyer
68%
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An Idol of Clay
Nixon Waterman

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Louis Untermeyer: Despair, Sorrow, Longing. Nixon Waterman: Longing, Sorrow, Despair.

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