Famous Poets from India

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List of notable or famous poets from India, with bios and photos, including the top poets born in India and even some popular poets who immigrated to India. If you're trying to find out the names of famous Indian poets then this list is the perfect resource for you. We also lists of famous Indian authors and famous playwrights from India. These poets are among the most prominent in their field, and information about each well-known poet from India is included when available.

The list you're viewing is made up of many different people of poetry, like Vikram Seth and Rabindranath Tagore. Featuring Hindi poets, 

This historic poets from India list can help answer the questions "Who are some Indian poets of note?" and "Who are the most famous poets from India?" These prominent poets of India may or may not be currently alive, but what they all have in common is that they're all respected Indian poets.

Use this list of renowned Indian poets to discover some new poets that you aren't familiar with. Don't forget to share this list by clicking one of the social media icons at the top or bottom of the page. 

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  • Muhammad Iqbal

    Muhammad Iqbal

    Dec. at 60 (1877-1938)
    • Birthplace: Sialkot, Pakistan
    Sir Muhammad Iqbal (; Urdu: محمد اِقبال‎; 9 November 1877 – 21 April 1938), widely known as Allama Iqbal was a poet, philosopher and politician, as well as an academic, barrister and scholar in British India who is widely regarded as having inspired the Pakistan Movement. He is called the "Spiritual Father of Pakistan." He is considered one of the most important figures in Urdu literature, with literary work in both Urdu and Persian.Iqbal is admired as a prominent poet by Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Iranians and other international scholars of literature. Though Iqbal is best known as an eminent poet, he is also a highly acclaimed "Muslim philosophical thinker of modern times". His first poetry book, The Secrets of the Self, appeared in the Persian language in 1915, and other books of poetry include The Secrets of Selflessness, Message from the East and Persian Psalms. Amongst these, his best known Urdu works are The Call of the Marching Bell, Gabriel's Wing, The Rod of Moses and a part of Gift from Hijaz. Along with his Urdu and Persian poetry, his Urdu and English lectures and letters have been very influential in cultural, social, religious and political discourses.In the`1922 New Years Honours he was made a Knight Bachelor by King George V, While studying law and philosophy in England, Iqbal became a member of the London branch of the All-India Muslim League. Later, during the League's December 1930 session, he delivered his most famous presidential speech known as the Allahabad Address in which he pushed for the creation of a Muslim state in north-west India.In much of South Asia and the Urdu-speaking world, Iqbal is regarded as the Shair-e-Mashriq (Urdu: شاعر مشرق‎, "Poet of the East"). He is also called Mufakkir-e-Pakistan (Urdu: مفکر پاکستان‎, "The Thinker of Pakistan"), Musawar-e-Pakistan (Urdu: مصور پاکستان‎, "Artist of Pakistan") and Hakeem-ul-Ummat (Urdu: حکیم الامت‎, "The Sage of the Ummah"). The Pakistan government officially named him "National Poet of Pakistan". His birthday Yōm-e Welādat-e Muḥammad Iqbāl (Urdu: یوم ولادت محمد اقبال‎), or Iqbal Day, is a public holiday in Pakistan.Iqbal's house is still located in Sialkot and is recognized as Iqbal's Manzil and is open for visitors. His other house where he lived most of his life and died is in Lahore, named as Javed Manzil. The museum is located on Allama Iqbal Road near Lahore Railway Station, Punjab, Pakistan. It was protected under the Punjab Antiquities Act of 1975, and declared a Pakistani national monument in 1977.
  • Rabindranath Tagore

    Rabindranath Tagore

    Dec. at 80 (1861-1941)
    • Birthplace: Kolkata, India
    Rabindranath Tagore ( (listen); born Robindronath Thakur, 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941), and also known by his sobriquets Gurudev, Kabiguru, and Biswakabi, was a polymath, poet, musician, and artist from the Indian subcontinent. He reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse" of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He is sometimes referred to as "the Bard of Bengal".A Brahmo from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Jessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At the age of sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a humanist, universalist, internationalist, and ardent anti-nationalist, he denounced the British Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy also endures in the institution he founded, Visva-Bharati University.Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh's Amar Shonar Bangla. The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
  • Sarojini Naidu

    Sarojini Naidu

    Dec. at 70 (1879-1949)
    • Birthplace: Hyderabad, India
    Sarojini Naidu was an Indian independence activist and poet who earned the sobriquet of Nightingale of India. She was born in a Bengali Hindu family in Hyderabad. She was educated in Chennai, London and Cambridge. She married Dr. Govindarajulu Naidu and settled down in Hyderabad. She took part in the Indian nationalist movement, became a follower of Mahatma Gandhi and fought for the attainment of Swaraj or independence. She became the President of Indian National Congress and was later appointed as Governor of the United Provinces, now Uttar Pradesh. She was the first woman Governor of India which at that time had a dominion status under the British crown. Known as the 'Nightingale of India', she was also a noted poet. Her poetry includes children's poems, nature poems, patriotic poems and poems of love and death. The "The Song of Radha" is a fine poem by Sarojini Naidu.It consists of three stanzas.The three stanzas represents the Gopi of Mathura in three different situations.First she goes to sell curd in the morning.Second time she visits Jamunas bank in the Mathuras to celebrate the coming spring in the noon time.Lastly she visits the temple to worship and pray at night.The song has its pictorial quality because it paints the beautiful picture of nature. She also wrote poetry in praise of Muslim figures like Imam Hussain, in a time where Muslim-Hindu tensions ran high in pre-independence era.When issues regarding the split of India into a Muslim country and a Hindu country had already begun, and as she had got an inter-caste and inter-regional marriage in a time where this was uncommon, her goal was to bring all of India together regardless of any caste or religion.The village song is beautiful lyrics from the Golden Threshold.T he poem is written in a dialog form by daughter. The atmosphere of the poem is pastoral. Thdaughter is a romantic girl. She wants to run away from house, domestic life.S he wishes to join fairy Flocks and of nature.Her mother is a traditional women. She perusals her daughter to lead an ordinary domestic life.But the daughter is determined to follow the call of nature. She doesn't want to stay at home.At the end she rejected marriage and domestic life and all worldly pleasure's.e
  • Sri Aurobindo

    Sri Aurobindo

    Dec. at 78 (1872-1950)
    • Birthplace: Kolkata, India
    Sri Aurobindo (born Aurobindo Ghose; 15 August 1872 – 5 December 1950) was an Indian philosopher, yogi, guru, poet, and nationalist. He joined the Indian movement for independence from British rule, for a while was one of its influential leaders and then became a spiritual reformer, introducing his visions on human progress and spiritual evolution. Aurobindo studied for the Indian Civil Service at King's College, Cambridge, England. After returning to India he took up various civil service works under the maharaja of the princely state of Baroda and became increasingly involved in nationalist politics and the nascent revolutionary movement in Bengal. He was arrested in the aftermath of a number of bomb outrages linked to his organisation, but in a highly public trial where he faced charges of treason, Aurobindo could only be convicted and imprisoned for writing articles against British rule in India. He was released when no evidence could be provided, following the murder of a prosecution witness during the trial. During his stay in the jail, he had mystical and spiritual experiences, after which he moved to Pondicherry, leaving politics for spiritual work. During his stay in Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo developed a method of spiritual practice he called Integral Yoga. The central theme of his vision was the evolution of human life into a life divine. He believed in a spiritual realisation that not only liberated man but transformed his nature, enabling a divine life on earth. In 1926, with the help of his spiritual collaborator, Mirra Alfassa (referred to as "The Mother"), he founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. His main literary works are The Life Divine, which deals with theoretical aspects of Integral Yoga; Synthesis of Yoga, which deals with practical guidance to Integral Yoga; and Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol, an epic poem.
  • Javed Akhtar
    • Birthplace: Gwalior, India
    Javed Akhtar (born 17 January 1945) is an Indian political activist, poet, lyricist and screenwriter, originally from Gwalior area. He is a recipient of the Padma Shri (1999), Padma Bhushan (2007), the Sahitya Akademi Award as well as five National Film Awards. In early part of his career he was a screenplay writer, creating movies like Deewar, Janzeer and Sholay. Later he left screenplay writing and became a lyricist and social-political activist .
  • Salil Chowdhury

    Salil Chowdhury

    Dec. at 71 (1923-1995)
    • Birthplace: 24 Parganas, India
    Salil Chowdhury; 19 November 1925 - 5 September 1995) was an Indian songwriter, music director, lyricist , writer and poet, who predominantly composed for Bengali, Hindi, Malayalam films. He went on to compose music for films in 13 languages. This includes over 75 Hindi films, 41 Bengali films, around 27 Malayalam films, and a few Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Gujarati, Oriya and Assamese films. His musical ability was widely recognised and acknowledged in the Indian film industry. He was an accomplished composer and arranger who was proficient in several musical instruments, including flute, the piano, and the esraj. He was also widely acclaimed and admired for his inspirational and original poetry in Bengali. The first Bengali film for which Chowdhury composed music was Paribortan, released in 1949. Mahabharati, released in 1994, was the last of the 41 Bengali films where he rendered his music. He is affectionately called Salilda by his admirers. Chowdhury being a composing exponent, he even sensed the talent of a guitarist who played in his orchestra and uttered that, "I think he’s going to become the greatest composer of all-time in India". The guitarist eventually turned out to be Ilaiyaraaja.