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.
Howard Phillips Lovecraft
E. E. Cummings
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
In the shadowed streets of Providence, Rhode Island, where colonial spires pierced the New England sky like fingers reaching toward indifferent stars, Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born on August 20, 1890. This unassuming city, with its cobblestone lanes and whispering ghosts of history, would become both cradle and canvas for a man whose poetry and prose would forever alter the landscape of American literature. Love…
“Few writers succeed equally in all the various branches of literature.”
In the sun-dappled streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 14, 1894, Edward Estlin Cummings entered the world with a quiet promise of rebellion that would one day shatter the conventions of American poetry. Known to family and friends simply as Estlin, and to the world as E.E. Cummings—or, in the lowercase stylings that publishers later adopted for his name—he would become one of the twentieth century’s most…
“The artist is no other than he who unlearns what he has learned, in order to know himself.”
About 66 km separate Providence, Rhode Island, USA from Boston, Massachusetts, 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.
Howard Phillips Lovecraft: providence, rhode island, cosmic horror, whipple van buren phillips, the crime of the century, to a youth, fungi from yuggoth, sonia haft greene. E. E. Cummings: cambridge massachusetts, joy farm, the enormous room, william slater brown, eimi, tulips and chimneys, anne minnerly barton, marion morehouse.
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.
Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Despair, Sorrow, Fear. E. E. Cummings: Longing, Tenderness, Sensuality.
Install V2Melody
Add a home-screen icon for quicker listening in a simple app window.