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.
May (Julian) Sinclair
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 turbulent landscape of early twentieth-century literature, few writers navigated the transition from Victorian sensibilities to modernist innovation with the skill and prescience of May Sinclair. Born Mary Amelia St. Clair Sinclair on August 24, 1863, in Rock Ferry, Cheshire, and dying on November 14, 1946, in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, Sinclair lived through one of the most transformative periods in literary…
“I make no apology for my many errors.”
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…
“Art is like politics. Any theory carried too far ends in sterility, and freshness is only gained by following some other line.”
About 5,019 km separate Rock Ferry, Cheshire, England from Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Different countries, different weather — unless a poem carries one landscape into the other.
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
May (Julian) Sinclair: rock ferry, cheshire, aylesbury, william sinclair, amelia sinclair, nakiketas and other poems, audrey craven, the divine fire. 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.
May (Julian) Sinclair: Spirituality, Wonder, Irony. Amy Lowell: Longing, Tenderness, Wonder.
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