Are You a Poet and Don’t Know It?
As a lover of classic poetry, I consider this list to be very helpful for anyone interested in delving into the topic. In my experience, many people will express interest in the concept of poetry but find it difficult to enjoy because much of the modern poetry they stumble upon in bookstores is pretentious nonsense. It alienates people because it can’t be discerned, so they give up.
True poetry is the art of language. To properly convey a thought within strict guidelines is a mind-bending exercise that takes time and skill. As a songwriter, I’ve been working within those limitations for many years. And you never really arrive, you just keep striving and working at it. But language is a beautiful thing to be respected. It is the only way in which we can successfully communicate our deepest thoughts, so we must choose our words wisely.
So, I encourage anyone who wants to understand poetry better to get a book of classic poems and read one a day. If you’re struggling with it, read it out loud, or look up an analysis to help you understand it better. I am certain it will develop a new appreciation for the art and enhance your knowledge of great literature, if nothing else. Or better yet, it may just inspire you to pick up the pen!
100 Best Recommended English Language Poets for You
1 John Milton 1608-1674
2 William Shakespeare 1564-1616
3 Geoffrey Chaucer 1343-1400
4 WB Yeats 1865-1939
5 William Wordsworth 1770-1850
6 John Keats 1795-1821
7 William Blake 1757-1827
8 TS Eliot 1888-1965
9 John Donne 1572-1631
10 Emily Dickinson 1830-1886
11 Walt Whitman 1819-1892
12 Alexander Pope 1688-1744
13 Robert Browning 1812-1899
14 Wallace Stevens 1879-1955
15 Percy Blysse Shelley 1792-1822
16 Lord Byron 1788-1824
17 Alfred Lord Tennysson 1809-1892
18 Edmund Spenser 1552-1599
19 Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1849
20 WH Auden 1907-1973
21 Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772-1934
22 John Dryden 1631-1700
23 Ezra Pound 1885-1972
24 George Herbert 1593-1633
25 Robert Burns 1759-1796
26 Andrew Marvell 1621-1678
27 Thomas Hardy 1840-1928
28 John Ashbery 1927-
29 William Langland 1332-1386
30 Elizabeth Bishop 1911-1979
31 Pearl Poet ?
32 Philip Sidney 1554-1586
33 Gerard Manley Hopkins 1844-1889
34 Robert Frost 1874-1963
35 Matthew Arnold 1822-1888
36 John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester 1647-1680
37 Beowulf Poet ?
38 Robert Lowell 1917-1977
39 Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806-1861
40 Christina Rossetti 1830-1894
41 James Merrill 1926-1995
42 Thomas Wyatt 1503-1542
43 Sylvia Plath 1932-1963
44 John Clare 1793-1864
45 Algernon Charles Swinburne 1837-1809
46 Philip Larkin 1922-1985
47 John Gower 1330-1408
48 Ben Johnson 1572-1637
49 Hart Crane 1899-1932
50 William Dunbar 1460-?
51 Geoffrey Hill 1932-
52 Seamus Heaney 1939-
53 William Cowper 1731-1800
54 William Carlos Williams 1832-1963
55 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807-1882
56 Thomas Traherne 1636-1674
57 Adrienne Rich 1929-2012
58 Wilfred Owen 1893-1918
59 AE Housman 1859-1936
60 Thomas Moore 1779-1852
61 Dylan Thomas 1914-1953
62 Derek Walcott 1930-
63 EE Cummings 1896-1962
64 Marianne Moore 1887-1972
65 John Berryman 1914-1972
66 Henry Vaughan 1622-1695
67 AR Ammons 1926-2001
68 Anne Finch 1661-1720
69 WS Merwin 1927-
70 Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1828-1882
71 Robert Penn Warren 1905-1989
72 Allen Ginsberg 1926-1997
73 Louise Gluck 1943-
74 Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey 1516-1547
75 Theodore Roethke 1908-1963
76 Felicia Hemans 1793-1835
77 Thomas Gray 1716-1771
78 Paul Muldoon 1951-
79 Thomas Lovell Beddoes 1803-1849
80 Abraham Cowley 1618-1667
81 Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862
82 Jonathan Swift 1667-1745
83 Ted Hughes 1930-1998
84 HD 1886-1961
85 Robinson Jeffers 1887-1962
86 Christopher Marlowe 1564-1593
87 Robert Herrick 1592-1674
88 Edward Arlington Robinson 1860-1935
89 Richard Crashaw 1613-1649
90 Carl Sandburg 1878-1967
91 Langston Hughes 1902-1967
92 Robert Henryson 1460-1500
93 Paul Laurence Dunbar 1872-1906
94 Stephen Crane 1871-1900
95 Anne Carson 1950-
96 Louis MacNeice 1907-1963
97 Anne Bradstreet 1612-1672
98 John Skelton 1460-1529
99 Bob Dylan 1941-
100 Emily Bronte 1818-1848
