Most Popular Poets

Surprised Alfred Tennyson isn't on there.

I think he's brilliant!

One season, these poets are the most noticed. As audiences change, so, probably will the list. Not putting a single one of the choices down, just stating it as I see it.

I can think of a couple that shouldn't be in there if timeless quality was the central factor - but I won't say which ones as I don't want to start a red-hot argumentative thread off...

Some of them, like 2 & 7 I don't know at all...

Anyone who doesn't know Langston Hughes shouldn't talk about poetry at all. Shel Silverstein isn't really a "poet" in the accepted sense of the word. He's a satyrist, a comic writer. Include him and Ogden Nash should certainly be in there. And W.B. Yeats doesn't even get a mention. Or John Berryman. What kind'a list is this? (And, for me at least, including Edgar Alan Poe is an embarrassment. He was a great prose stylist but read his essay on what makes for good poetry. You'll groan at the romantic nonsense.)

It's based on hits on a site. Not like a real poll.

Kenneth Slessor is a well known Australian contemporary? poet.

AB "Banjo" Patterson is probably the best known of the bush poet genre.

works from "the Banjo"

I'm surprised that Oprah didn't somehow make it to this list.

EdgarBlythe probably gets it about right. I think it notable that song lyricists are (apparently) not considered to be writing poetry.
In the clearing stands the boxer, and a fighter by his trade.
And he carries a reminder of every glove that laid him down...
or cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame
"I am leaving! I am leaving" but the fighter still remains.
- - - Paul Simon, "The Boxer"

He's one of my favorites, together with Bobbie Burns..

my top 5

e e cummings
stevie smith
w h auden
dylan thomas
al purdy

Robert Frost