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.
Charles Frederick White
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.
Born in 1876 amid the lingering shadows of slavery in Tennessee, Charles Frederick White entered a world still scarred by the chains his parents had worn. The oldest of ten children born to formerly enslaved parents, he carried the weight of their hard-won freedom from the very beginning. His family soon migrated northward to Springfield, Illinois, seeking better opportunities in a state that had once sheltered Abrah…
“You would hardly feel that any folk but black folk were your friends.”
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 712 km separate Tennessee, 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.
Charles Frederick White: tennessee, springfield, plea of the negro soldier, spanish-american war, eighth illinois national guard, williston seminary, who's who in philadelphia, joseph sawyer. 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.
Charles Frederick White: Anger, Sorrow, Despair. Charles Bertram Johnson: Spirituality, Peace, Longing.
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