The Greatest Poems Ever Written

Ranker Books
Updated June 23, 2023 37.1K votes 4.6K voters 78.3K views
Over 4.6K Ranker voters have come together to rank this list of The Greatest Poems Ever Written
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Vote up the all time greatest poems ever written in recorded history.
Latest additions: Hesitate to Call
Most divisive: Invictus

What is the best poem of all time? This list includes the best poems of all time such as "The Raven," "Daddy," "O Captain! My Captain!," and "I Hear America Singing." Poetry has captivated readers for centuries, and the poems on this list include modern classics as well as older poems that have stood the test of time.

Written works have the ability to make us feel. They make us want to believe, be inspired, and live vicariously through the stories we read on the page. Whether short or long form, poetry is often illusory, and full of rich imagery or hidden meaning. It is these elements which provoke readers to dig deeper. The best poems, like those on this list, are read throughout the ages. They are passed from generation to generation and taught throughout school to young students.

Poets and their poetry have the ability to take readers places and into worlds never imagined. Poets can often be tortured souls or great thinkers that allow the reader a new view on the world. The greatest poems on this list provide the kind of emotional connection to the written word that few other poems can.

Vote up the all time best poems below or add the most famous poems you think are great if they aren't already on the list.
Ranked by
  • 1
    1,525 votes

    The Raven

    Edgar Allan Poe
    "The Raven" is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. First published in January 1845, the poem is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a talking raven's mysterious visit to a distraught lover, tracing the man's slow fall into madness. The lover, often identified as being a student, is lamenting the loss of his love, Lenore. Sitting on a bust of Pallas, the raven seems to further instigate his distress with its constant repetition of the word "Nevermore". The poem makes use of a number of folk and classical references. Poe claimed to have written the poem very logically and methodically, intending to create a poem that would appeal to both critical and popular tastes, as he explained in his 1846 follow-up essay, "The Philosophy of Composition". The poem was inspired in part by a talking raven in the novel Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty by Charles Dickens. Poe borrows the complex rhythm and meter of Elizabeth Barrett's poem "Lady Geraldine's Courtship", and makes use of internal rhyme as well as alliteration throughout.
  • 2
    1,687 votes

    The Road Not Taken

    Robert Frost
    "The Road Not Taken" is a poem by Robert Frost, published in 1916 as the first poem in the collection Mountain Interval.
  • 3
    964 votes

    Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

    Dylan Thomas
  • 4
    908 votes

    Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

    William Shakespeare
    Sonnet 18, often alternately titled Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?, is one of the best-known of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. Part of the Fair Youth sequence, it is the first of the cycle after the opening sequence now described as the Procreation sonnets. In the sonnet, the speaker compares his beloved to the summer season, and argues that his beloved is better. He also states that his beloved will live on forever through the words of the poem. Scholars have found parallels within the poem to Ovid's Tristia and Amores, both of which have love themes. Sonnet 18 is written in the typical Shakespearean sonnet form, having 14 lines of iambic pentameter ending in a rhymed couplet. Detailed exegeses have revealed several double meanings within the poem, giving it a greater depth of interpretation.
  • 5
    1,012 votes

    O Captain! My Captain!

    Walt Whitman
  • 6
    691 votes

    Shakespeare's sonnets

    William Shakespeare
    Shakespeare's Sonnets is a book with the complete collection of the 154 sonnets of William Shakespeare.