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.
Jean Ingelow
Amy Lowell
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
In the spring of 1863, the Victorian literary world witnessed a phenomenon that would become increasingly rare in the annals of English poetry: the overnight success of a provincial poet whose work captured both popular imagination and critical acclaim. Jean Ingelow, a banker's daughter from the Lincolnshire fens, achieved what many seasoned writers could only dream of—instant fame through a single collection of poem…
“I have lived to thank God that all my prayers have not been answered.”
Amy Lawrence Lowell emerged from the staid drawing rooms of Boston's Brahmin society to become one of the most controversial and influential poets of early twentieth-century America. Born on February 9, 1874, into one of New England's most distinguished families, she would spend her fifty-one years challenging literary conventions, championing new poetic forms, and leaving an indelible mark on American literature. He…
“The facts of a man's life tell very little, unless one also knows the man.”
About 5,221 km separate Boston, Lincolnshire, England from Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Both have ground in Boston.
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Jean Ingelow: boston, lincolnshire fens, the high tide on the coast of lincolnshire, 1571, poems, orriss, gerald massey, jane and ann taylor, off the skelligs. Amy Lowell: boston, imagist movement, ada dwyer russell, sword blades and poppy seed, patterns, the taxi, can grande's castle, tendencies in modern american poetry.
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.
Jean Ingelow: Longing, Tenderness, Wonder. Amy Lowell: Longing, Tenderness, Wonder.
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