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

Alfred Kreymborg Alfred Kreymborg

Poet B

Edgar A. Guest Edgar A. Guest
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 70% Poems 84% Blended 76%
Swap sides Another related pair
Alfred Kreymborg

Alfred Kreymborg

10 December 1883 – 14 August 1966 (~83)
2 live poems · English

In the early decades of the twentieth century, when American poetry was struggling to break free from the strictures of Victorian convention, a slight, chess-obsessed son of German immigrants emerged as one of the most influential figures in literary modernism. Alfred Kreymborg, born on December 10, 1883, in New York City, would become far more than a poet. He was a literary impresario, a talent scout with an uncanny…

“An editor's primary duty to his contributors is to print them without making them pay for the privilege.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Imagist Poets, Modernist Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Longing, Spirituality
Edgar A. Guest

Edgar A. Guest

20 August 1881 – 5 August 1959 (~78)
21 live poems · English

Edgar Albert Guest was born in Birmingham, England, on 20 August 1881, and died in Detroit, Michigan, on 5 August 1959, fifteen days before his seventy-eighth birthday. During much of his long life, he was among the most familiar poets in the United States. His name appeared daily in newspapers, his verses were memorized in schools and recited at civic meetings, and his books sold in quantities that many more critica…

“But a home cannot be builded always on happiness.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Children's Verse, Edwardian Poets, Light Verse Poets
Emotional landscape: Joy, Tenderness, Peace

In time

Alfred Kreymborg
Edgar A. Guest
1881 1966
They overlapped for 77 years (1883–1959). When Alfred Kreymborg was born, Edgar A. Guest was about 2. Alfred Kreymborg was about 76 when Edgar A. Guest died.

On the map

About 5,425 km separate New York City, New York, USA from Birmingham, England. 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

Alfred Kreymborg: new york city, german immigrants, greenwich village, alfred stieglitz, the glebe, des imagistes, imagism, others: a magazine of the new verse. Edgar A. Guest: birmingham, detroit, people's poet, a heap o' livin', just folks, the path to home, it couldn't be done, nellie crossman.

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.

Prodigy
Alfred Kreymborg
80%
Compare
Had Youth Been Willing to Listen
Edgar A. Guest
Prodigy
Alfred Kreymborg
78% world, life
Compare
Keep Your Dreams
Edgar A. Guest
Idealists
Alfred Kreymborg
76% world
Compare
Keep Your Dreams
Edgar A. Guest
Prodigy
Alfred Kreymborg
76%
Compare
There Are No Gods
Edgar A. Guest
Prodigy
Alfred Kreymborg
75% life
Compare
Tied Down
Edgar A. Guest
Prodigy
Alfred Kreymborg
75% world, life
Compare
Always Saying "Don't!"
Edgar A. Guest

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Alfred Kreymborg: Wonder, Longing, Spirituality. Edgar A. Guest: Joy, Tenderness, Peace.

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