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.
Alice Dunbar Nelson
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
Alice Dunbar Nelson was born Alice Ruth Moore on July 19, 1875, in the bustling, sun-drenched city of New Orleans, Louisiana, a place where the Mississippi River whispered stories of resilience and reinvention into the ears of its diverse inhabitants. She died on September 18, 1935, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the age of sixty, her heart finally succumbing to the strains of a life lived with fierce passion and…
“The Negro woman is the most neglected woman in the world.”
Ella Wheeler Wilcox was born on 5 November 1850 in Johnstown Center, Wisconsin, a rural community whose fields, seasons, family routines, and wide horizons remained central to her imaginative life. She died on 30 October 1919 at her home in Short Beach, Connecticut, only days before her sixty-ninth birthday. Between those dates she became one of the most widely read poets in the United States. Her name was known in p…
“There are men of brain, wealth and position who are failures, and there are men of limited abilities and in humble places who are yet successful.”
About 1,421 km separate New Orleans, Louisiana, USA from Johnstown Center, Wisconsin, 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.
Alice Dunbar Nelson: new orleans, philadelphia, paul laurence dunbar, violets and other tales, the goodness of st. rocque, the stones of the village, phillis wheatley club, national association of colored women. Ella Wheeler Wilcox: johnstown center, short beach, solitude, poems of passion, robert m. wilcox, positive thinking, the voice of the voiceless, women's suffrage.
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.
Alice Dunbar Nelson: Longing, Sorrow, Despair. Ella Wheeler Wilcox: Longing, Spirituality, Sorrow.
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