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.
Joseph Milton Hayes, known to the public as J. Milton Hayes, was born in Bristol on 13 January 1884 and died on 6 February 1940. During his lifetime he became one of the best-known writers of recitation verse in Britain, a poet whose work was heard as often as it was read. His celebrity rested especially on “The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God,” a narrative poem whose opening line, “There’s a one-eyed yellow idol…
“I wrote The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God in five hours, but I had it all planned out. It isn't poetry and it does not pretend to be, but it does what it sets out to do.”
Neighbourhood:
Folk & Ballad Poets, Light Verse Poets
On March 12, 1863, in the coastal city of Pescara in the Abruzzi region of Italy, a child was born who would come to embody the restless, turbulent spirit of his age like no other writer of his generation. Baptized Gaetano, he would forever be known by the name his family gave him in childhood—Gabriele—a name that seemed to foreshadow the angelic, almost otherworldly presence he would project throughout his life. Gab…
“Memento audere semper.”
Neighbourhood:
Decadent Poets, Dramatic Poets, Italian Renaissance Poets, Political Poets, Symbolist Poets, Victorian Poets
They overlapped for 55 years (1884–1938).
When J. Milton Hayes was born, Gabriele D'Annunzio was about 21.
J. Milton Hayes was about 54 when Gabriele D'Annunzio died.
About 1,713 km separate
Leeds, Yorkshire, England from
Pescara, Abruzzo, Italy.
Different countries, different weather — unless a poem carries one landscape into the other.
J. Milton Hayes:
bristol, the green eye of the little yellow god, khatmandu, the punch and judy man, edwardian period, music halls, variety theatres, public recitations.
Gabriele D'Annunzio:
pescara, abruzzi, maria hardouin di gallese, eleonora duse, il piacere, canto novo, laudi del cielo del mare della terra e degli eroi, alcyone.
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.
