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.
Leslie Pinckney Hill
Charles Bertram Johnson
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
Leslie Pinckney Hill entered the world on May 14, 1880, in Lynchburg, Virginia, the son of Samuel H. Hill, a man who had known the brutal chains of enslavement, and Sarah E. Hill. In the shadow of the post-Reconstruction South, where the promises of freedom still clashed with the realities of Jim Crow oppression, young Leslie’s early years were steeped in the rhythms of a family striving for dignity and self-determin…
“The human family is one.”
Charles Bertram Johnson entered the world on October 5, 1880, in the small town of Callao, Missouri, a place where the rolling prairies of Macon County stretched under vast Midwestern skies, whispering promises and hardships in equal measure. He departed this life on March 20, 1958, at the age of seventy-seven, in Jefferson City, Missouri, where he was laid to rest in Longview Cemetery. His seventy-seven years spanne…
About 1,199 km separate Lynchburg, Virginia, USA from Callao, Missouri, 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.
Leslie Pinckney Hill: lynchburg virginia, east orange new jersey, harvard university, booker t. washington, the wings of oppression, cheyney state teachers college, jane ethel clark, the crisis. Charles Bertram Johnson: callao, missouri, jefferson city, longview cemetery, paul laurence dunbar, songs of my people, the mantle of dunbar, lincoln school, moberly, missouri.
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.
Leslie Pinckney Hill: Spirituality, Sorrow, Tenderness. Charles Bertram Johnson: Spirituality, Peace, Longing.
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