Knowledge Affairs – Special

Poetry is one of the oldest forms of writing, dating back thousands of years. Early poets used words in rhythms and melodies, essentially creating songs that told stories. Poems often recounted past events to help cultures pass their history from one generation to another. Poems may be rhymed or unrhymed and often use forms of poetic meter.

The different types of poetry include haiku, lyric poetry, sonnets, elegies, hymns, limericks, couplets, and others. The poets featured on this list wrote in all of these forms and more. They range from ancient storytellers, such as Jalal al-Din Rumi, to social activists such as Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou. These rankings are based on the reach of their poetry, its influence on society and art, its impact on popular culture, and the quality of their work.

Forbes published a list on its website of the 20 poets it considers to be the greatest poets in world history. According to its assessment, they are ranked in descending order from 20 to 1 as follows:

20- Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)

García Lorca grew up in Andalusia and drew inspiration from his childhood memories there in his poetry. He studied under Nobel Prize winner Juan Ramón Jiménez and was a close friend of Salvador Dalí. In addition to poetry, García Lorca wrote plays. He was assassinated in 1936 during a turbulent period in Spanish history. His works include Blood Wedding, In Search of Duende, and In the Green Morning.

19- Sylvia Plath (1932–1963)

Sylvia Plath published only one volume of poetry during her lifetime, yet she is considered one of the most famous American poets. Her autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, detailed her struggles with depression, and she died by suicide in 1963. She received the Pulitzer Prize for a collection of poetry published after her death.

18- Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207–1273)

He lived during the 13th century AD and became famous for his classical poetic work Masnavi. He was raised as the son of a preacher in Afghanistan and later moved to Samarkand.

17- Walt Whitman (1819–1892)

The poet Walt Whitman, often referred to as the father of free verse, was one of the most influential American writers. He generated considerable controversy during his time. Among his most famous collections is Leaves of Grass.

16- Mary Oliver (1935–2019)

Mary Oliver, winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, is considered one of the most widely read poets in America and was once described as the country’s best-selling poet. Her poetry centers on nature, and she wrote in simple language that could be easily understood by readers at all levels.

15- Homer (8th century BC, exact dates of birth and death unknown)

The ancient Greek poet Homer wrote two of the greatest timeless poems in history: The Iliad, which chronicles the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon at the end of the Trojan War, and The Odyssey, which tells the story of Odysseus’s return to Ithaca after the fall of Troy.

14- Robert Browning (1812–1889)

The playwright and poet Robert Browning was among the most famous writers of the Victorian era, using irony to offer social commentary. He was distinguished by his enormous linguistic richness, and his dramatic works became famous for their extremely long monologues.

The poems Pauline (1833) and Paracelsus (1835) are considered among his most famous early poems. He later published his most famous work, the poetry collection The Ring and the Book.

13- T. S. Eliot (1888–1965)

“April is the cruellest month” is how The Waste Land, T. S. Eliot’s most famous poem, begins. Published in the period following World War I, the poem explores themes of loss and sacrifice.

Eliot, who also wrote plays and essays, was a modernist poet who used language in innovative ways. Among his most famous poems are The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Ash-Wednesday. One of his most famous collections is The Waste Land and Other Poems.

12- Adrienne Rich (1929–2012)

Adrienne Rich grew up in Maryland. She received the National Institute of Arts and Letters Award and two Guggenheim Fellowships, and had published three volumes of poetry by 1963.

11- Audre Lorde (1934–1972)

The poet and philosopher Audre Lorde was one of the greatest writers and thinkers of her generation.

She was deeply concerned with language and expression and worked in teaching. Among her best-known works are The Black Unicorn, The Fire Next Time, and East Berlin 1989.

10- Pablo Neruda (1904–1973)

Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda published his first poem at the age of thirteen. He explored surrealism as well as love poetry. By the age of eighteen, he had published two critically acclaimed collections of poetry.

Neruda died in 1973 and is still known as Chile’s national poet.

9- E. E. Cummings (1894–1962)

Edward Estlin Cummings grew up in Massachusetts. His poetry reflects his experiences and his innovative uses of language. In fact, he frequently invented words and used existing words in unconventional ways, as in his poem love is more thicker than forget.

8- Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)

She was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923. Later in her life, she was also honored with the Frost Medal, an award recognizing lifetime achievement. Among her most famous poems are Renascence, First Fig, and Spring.

7- Sappho (c. 630–570 BC)

Sappho was an ancient Greek poet from the island of Lesbos, and her extensive body of work has been immortalized across thousands of years. Her poems were set to music, and she gained widespread fame for her lyrical style. Sappho came from a wealthy family, but little is known about her upbringing. Hellenistic scholars in Alexandria named her one of the nine great lyric poets. Her works include Clinging to Love and If Not, Winter.

6- Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)

Rudyard Kipling may be best known for his novel The Jungle Book, but he was also a prolific and talented poet. Kipling came from India, which was then under British rule, and became the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 41. He was also the first English-language writer to receive the award. Many of his most famous poems were published before 1920, including Gunga Din, The White Man’s Burden, and My Boy Jack, which tells the story of his only son, who died in World War I.

5- Robert Frost (1874–1963)

He is the only person to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry four times.

Frost grew up in San Francisco and moved to Massachusetts at the age of eleven. He briefly attended Dartmouth College and published his first poem in 1894. Among Frost’s most famous poems are The Road Not Taken, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, and Fire and Ice.

4- Langston Hughes (1901–1967)

Langston Hughes, a poet of the Harlem Renaissance, helped pioneer the form of jazz poetry. He described the period of his fame as the “Harlem Renaissance.”

He published poems in The Crisis, the magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Among his most famous poems are Let America Be America Again, I, Too, Mother to Son, and Harlem. Hughes is considered one of the most prominent poets of the 20th century.

3- Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)

Emily Dickinson wrote nearly 2,000 poems, but only ten were published during her lifetime. She gained widespread recognition after her death, when her family discovered her work, and her fame has grown considerably ever since. Dickinson’s poetry is distinguished by her unique style, including unconventional capitalization, slant rhyme, short lines, and other distinctive features.

Among her most famous poems are Because I Could Not Stop for Death and “Hope” is the thing with feathers.

2- Shel Silverstein (1930–1999)

He wrote poetry for children and also created plays, animated works, books, and songs.

He pursued poetry professionally, and millions of copies of his books were sold, including The Giving Tree. Among his most famous poems are Homework Machine, Falling Up, Sick, and For Sale.

1- Maya Angelou (1928–2014)

Maya Angelou is considered one of the most famous and accomplished American poets in history. She received more than forty honorary doctoral degrees, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and became the first poet since Frost to read a poem at a presidential inauguration. She was also a highly successful memoirist, with works including I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

In that book, Angelou movingly recounted her painful childhood in St. Louis and Arkansas before working in a nightclub and later becoming a distinguished professor at Wake Forest University. Caged Bird (published in 1969) marked the beginning of a new era in autobiographical literature, as Angelou opened the door for more works by Black women writers who had previously been deliberately overlooked by publishers.

Thus, poetry is a unique medium open to interpretation, allowing people to bring their own perspectives and personal experiences to a poem. The greatest poets make use of this quality to create works that touch people’s emotions for different reasons. They address issues of life and death, love and loss, and many others, allowing them to connect with readers on a personal level. Famous poets are celebrated because their works are universal. They combine beauty of style with depth of thought and often employ imagery, symbols, metaphors, and, of course, creative uses of poetic meter to produce unique works. This list includes twenty of the most famous poets who created some of the greatest timeless works, dating not merely back centuries, but thousands of years.

Source: Tony Fitzgerald – Forbes Magazine, USA.

Forbes – The 20 Best Poets