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.
Marsden Hartley stands as one of the most fascinating yet often overlooked figures in American modernism—a man who moved between painting and poetry with equal fervor, whose work captured the raw, untamed spirit of early twentieth-century artistic experimentation. Though primarily remembered as a visual artist, Hartley's literary output reveals a sensibility equally attuned to the power of words as to the force of co…
“I could never be French, I could never become German – I shall always remain American – the essence which is in me is American mysticism.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Decadent Poets, LGBTQ+ Poets, Modernist Poets
The Woodberrys—or Woodburys, as various spellings of the name exist—were an old New England family who had immigrated early in the colonial period and established deep roots along Massachusetts's North Shore. Since settlement took hold in Beverly and neighboring seaport towns, the family had been native to this maritime region, and many of Woodberry's forebears were sea captains and sailors. This ancestral connection…
“Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Edwardian Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
They overlapped for 54 years (1877–1930).
When Marsden Hartley was born, George Edward Woodberry was about 22.
Marsden Hartley was about 53 when George Edward Woodberry died.
Marsden Hartley:
lewiston, maine, cleveland school of art, william merritt chase, alfred stieglitz, war motif series, karl von freyburg, twenty-five poems, androscoggin.
George Edward Woodberry:
massachusetts, harvard college, edgar allan poe, the north shore watch, the nation, columbia university, comparative literature, philosophy.
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.
