Howard Phelps Putnam was born in 1894 in Allston, Massachusetts, then a distinctly suburban and semi-rural part of Boston, and died on July 3, 1948, in Jamaica Plain. He belonged to the generation of American writers formed between the confident cultural inheritance of the nineteenth century and the disillusioning modernity of the First World War. His reputation never became as large as those of several Yale contempo…
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
Howard Phelps Putnam
Poet B
Emanuel Morgan
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.
Strongly related
Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.
Biography 67%
Blended 67%
Swap sides
Another related pair
Emanuel Morgan occupies one of the most unusual positions in American literary history: he was a poet who never existed in the ordinary biographical sense, yet whose poems, reputation, controversies, and afterlife have proved remarkably real. The dates commonly attached to him, 1916–1917, refer not to the span of a human life but to the brief public career of a deliberately invented authorial persona. “Emanuel Morgan…
In time
Howard Phelps Putnam
Emanuel Morgan
1894
1948
They overlapped for 2 years (1916–1917).
When Emanuel Morgan was born, Howard Phelps Putnam was about 22.
Howard Phelps Putnam was about 23 when Emanuel Morgan died.
On the map
About 306 km separate Boston, Massachusetts, USA from New York City, New York, USA. Shared ground: United States.
Howard Phelps Putnam
Themes they return to
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
No overlapping top terms in the poem critiques — any kinship may sit in mood rather than vocabulary.
From the biographies
Howard Phelps Putnam: allston, massachusetts, jamaica plain, trinc, the five seasons, the earthly comedy, harvard, massachusetts, skull and bones, stephen vincent benét. Emanuel Morgan: spectrism, witter bynner, arthur davison ficke, santa fe, harvard university, tao te ching, mock avant-garde, poetry society of america.
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.
The world around them
While their lives overlapped
Notable events from the years they were both alive.
1916
Death in Battle
1916
Discovery of Heparin
1916
Execution and Legacy
Howard Phelps Putnam
Emanuel Morgan
Emotional landscapes
Howard Phelps Putnam: Irony, Longing, Fear. Emanuel Morgan: Wonder, Spirituality, Longing.