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
Gertrude Stein was born on 3 February 1874 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, then a separate city and now part of Pittsburgh, and died on 27 July 1946 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, near Paris. Few modern writers have made language itself so central to the drama of literature. Stein was a novelist, poet, playwright, critic, lecturer, collector, salon host, memoirist, and commanding public personality. She was also, in collaboration…
“We are always the same age inside.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, LGBTQ+ Poets, Modernist Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Irony, Tenderness
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.
Gertrude Stein:
allegheny, pittsburgh, neuilly-sur-seine, alice b. toklas, three lives, tender buttons, the making of americans, harvard annex.
