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

Charles Bertram Johnson Charles Bertram Johnson

Poet B

Walter de la Mare Walter de la Mare
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 65% Poems 81% Blended 72%
Swap sides Another related pair
Charles Bertram Johnson

Charles Bertram Johnson

5 October 1880 – 20 March 1958 (~78)
3 live poems · English

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…

Neighbourhood: African American Poets, American Poets, Devotional Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Nature Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Peace, Longing
Walter de la Mare

Walter de la Mare

25 April 1873 – 22 June 1956 (~83)
3 live poems · English

Walter John de la Mare was born on 25 April 1873 at Charlton, then in Kent and now part of southeast London, into a family whose circumstances were modest but whose cultural inheritance was unusually varied. His father, James Edward de la Mare, worked as an official at the Bank of England; his mother, Lucy Sophia Browning, came from a family with Scottish connections. The surname preserved a French Huguenot ancestry,…

“Only the rarest kind of best is good enough for the young.”

Neighbourhood: Children's Verse, Edwardian Poets, Georgian Poets, Nature Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Peace, Tenderness

In time

Charles Bertram Johnson
Walter de la Mare
1873 1958
They overlapped for 77 years (1880–1956). When Charles Bertram Johnson was born, Walter de la Mare was about 7. Charles Bertram Johnson was about 76 when Walter de la Mare died.

On the map

About 6,905 km separate Callao, Missouri, USA from Canterbury, Kent, England. Different countries, different weather — unless a poem carries one landscape into the other.

Themes they return to

Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.

Shared

From the biographies

Charles Bertram Johnson: callao, missouri, jefferson city, longview cemetery, paul laurence dunbar, songs of my people, the mantle of dunbar, lincoln school, moberly, missouri. Walter de la Mare: charlton, st paul's cathedral choir school, songs of childhood, the listeners, the three mulla-mulgars, peacock pie, elfrida ingpen, henry newbolt.

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.

Spring
Charles Bertram Johnson
77% world, bird
Compare
The Titmouse
Walter de la Mare
Spring
Charles Bertram Johnson
68% world
Compare
Old Susan
Walter de la Mare
Serenity
Charles Bertram Johnson
66% life
Compare
Old Susan
Walter de la Mare
Spring
Charles Bertram Johnson
65% world
Compare
The Moth
Walter de la Mare
So Much
Charles Bertram Johnson
64%
Compare
The Titmouse
Walter de la Mare
So Much
Charles Bertram Johnson
63%
Compare
Old Susan
Walter de la Mare

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Charles Bertram Johnson: Spirituality, Peace, Longing. Walter de la Mare: Wonder, Peace, Tenderness.

Skip to main content