List of famous poets, with photos, bios, and other information when available. Who are the top poets in the world? This includes the most prominent poets, living and dead, both in America and abroad. This list of notable poets is ordered by their level of prominence, and can be sorted for various bits of information, such as where these historic poets were born and what their nationality is. The people on this list are from different countries, but what they all have in common is that they're all renowned poets.
Items here include everything from Bob Dylan to Paul McCartney.
From reputable, prominent, and well known poets to the lesser known poets of today, these are some of the best professionals in the poet field. If you want to answer the questions, "Who are the most famous poets ever?" and "What are the names of famous poets?" then you're in the right place. (1851 items)
Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an expatriate American poet and critic who was a major figure of the early modernist movement. His contribution to poetry began with his development of Imagism, a ...more
Homer Homerus, best known as his anglicised name Homer, is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. He was believed by the ancient Greeks to have been the first and greatest of the epic poets. Author ...more
Jack Kerouac Jack Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is ...more
John Keats John Keats was an English Romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, despite his work having been in ...more
Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor, and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of ...more
Dr. Seuss Theodor Seuss Geisel was an American writer and cartoonist. He was most widely known for his children's books, which he wrote and illustrated under the pseudonym Dr. Seuss. He had used the pen ...more
Hans Christian Andersen Hans Christian Andersen was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, Andersen is best remembered for his fairy tales. Andersen's popularity is not ...more
James Baldwin James Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic. His essays, as collected in Notes of a Native Son, explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of ...more
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer and statesman. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of metres and styles; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an ...more
Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle KStJ, DL was a Scottish writer and physician, most noted for his fictional stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered milestones ...more
Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German philosopher, cultural critic, poet, composer and Latin and Greek scholar. He wrote several critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, ...more
Charles Bukowski Henry Charles Bukowski was a German-born American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and beautiful economic ambience of his home city of ...more
Arthur Rimbaud Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet born in Charleville, Ardennes. He influenced modern literature and arts, inspired various musicians, and prefigured surrealism. He started writing ...more
Federico García Lorca Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca, known as Federico García Lorca was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director. García Lorca achieved ...more
Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer, known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to be buried in Poets' Corner of Westminster ...more
Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal, ...more
Dylan Thomas Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "And death shall have no dominion", the "Play ...more
Dante Alighieri Durante degli Alighieri, simply called Dante, was a major Italian poet of the late Middle Ages. His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedìa and later called Divina by Boccaccio, is ...more
John Lithgow John Arthur Lithgow is an American actor, musician, and author. Lithgow has received acclaim and many accolades in his career including two Tony Awards, five Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe ...more
Agatha Christie Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, DBE was an English novelist, short story writer, and playwright. She also wrote six romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best known for the 66 ...more
James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century. Joyce is best known ...more
Buckminster Fuller Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller was an American neo-futuristic architect, systems theorist, author, designer, and inventor. Fuller published more than 30 books, coining or ...more
Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of both the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the counterculture that soon would follow. He vigorously opposed economic ...more
Andrea Jeremiah Andrea Jeremiah is an Indian actress, playback singer and occasional music composer, who works mainly in the Tamil film industry. Beginning her career singing playback, Andrea has gone on to ...more
Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau was an American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, sage writer and philosopher. He is best known for his book Walden, a ...more
