Poet

A poet is someone who writes poetry. Poetry can be written in any language by a poet.

Sappho was an Ancient Greek poet. She lived in Lesbos, Greece. She was famous for writing lyric love poems to women. She wrote in the Ancient Greek language.

Famous English poets are William Shakespeare, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, William Blake, John Keats, and Percy Shelley. They wrote in the English language. Their poetry comes in different styles and forms. Often their poetry is lyrical and rhymes.

The most famous American poets are Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. They wrote in English. Often their poetry did not rhyme. They lived in the 19th century in the United States. Later 20th century American poets include Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath, and Anne Sexton.

Modern French poets are Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire. Rimbaud was famous for his poetry collection called “Illuminations.” Baudelaire wrote of beauty, decay, and spirituality in his famous work “Flowers of Evil.”

Great Spanish poets are Garcilaso de la Vega Frederico García Lorca, Antonio Machado, and Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer. Vicente Aleixandre won the Nobel Prize.

Three Latin American poets won the Nobel prize in the 20th century. They include Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, and Octavio Paz. They wrote in Spanish.

Caribbean poets Derek Walcott and Giannina Braschi wrote epic poetry. Winner of the Nobel Prize, Walcott wrote Omeros and In a Green Night in English. Giannina Braschi writes epic poetry in English, Spanglish, and Spanish, including Empire of Dreams

Ancient Chinese poets are Wang Wei, Du Fu, and Qu Yuan. They wrote in Chinese about the nature and man.

See also

• poetry
• sonnet