poet

/ˈpoʊət/

/ˈpʌʊɪt/

Other forms: poets

If you’re a poet and you know it, you’re someone who writes poems. Poets have been charming people with their words ever since Orpheus sang his way to Hades and back.

A poet is a writer who regularly publishes poems, but a poet can also be anyone who uses language creatively. Try it! The root of poet can be traced back to the Greek poein, "to make." Some poets write in carefully metered, rhyming lines, while others compose looser prose poems or "free verse," and the very best poets convey something that's essential or true. The Romantic poet William Wordsworth described good poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”

Definitions of poet

1. noun

   a writer of poems (the term is usually reserved for writers of good poetry)
   examples:

   Alcaeus

   Greek lyric poet of Lesbos; reputed inventor of Alcaic verse (611-580 BC)

   Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowitzki

   French poet; precursor of surrealism (1880-1918)

   Matthew Arnold

   English poet and literary critic (1822-1888)

   Hans Arp

   Alsatian artist and poet who was cofounder of dadaism in Zurich; noted for abstract organic sculptures (1887-1966)

   Wystan Hugh Auden

   United States poet (born in England) (1907-1973)

   Charles Pierre Baudelaire

   a French poet noted for macabre imagery and evocative language (1821-1867)

   Stephen Vincent Benet

   United States poet; brother of William Rose Benet (1898-1943)

   William Blake

   visionary British poet and painter (1757-1827)

   Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Blok

   Russian poet (1880-1921)

   Giovanni Boccaccio

   Italian poet (born in France) (1313-1375)

   Anne Dudley Bradstreet

   poet in colonial America (born in England) (1612-1672)

   Bertolt Brecht

   German dramatist and poet who developed a style of epic theater (1898-1956)

   Rupert Brooke

   English lyric poet (1887-1915)

   Elizabeth Barrett Browning

   English poet best remembered for love sonnets written to her husband Robert Browning (1806-1861)

   Robert Browning

   English poet and husband of Elizabeth Barrett Browning noted for his dramatic monologues (1812-1889)

   Robert Burns

   celebrated Scottish poet (1759-1796)

   Samuel Butler

   English poet (1612-1680)

   Sixth Baron Byron of Rochdale

   English romantic poet notorious for his rebellious and unconventional lifestyle (1788-1824)

   Pedro Calderon de la Barca

   Spanish poet and dramatist considered one of the great Spanish writers (1600-1681)

   Giosue Carducci

   Italian poet considered the national poet of modern Italy (1835-1907)

   Thomas Carew

   Englishman and Cavalier poet whose lyric poetry was favored by Charles I (1595-1639)

   Gaius Valerius Catullus

   Roman lyric poet remembered for his love poems to an aristocratic Roman woman (84-54 BC)

   Geoffrey Chaucer

   English poet remembered as author of the Canterbury Tales (1340-1400)

   John Anthony Ciardi

   United States poet and critic (1916-1986)

   Samuel Taylor Coleridge

   English romantic poet (1772-1834)

   Pierre Corneille

   French tragic dramatist whose plays treat grand moral themes in elegant verse (1606-1684)

   William Cowper

   English poet who wrote hymns and poetry about nature (1731-1800)

   Harold Hart Crane

   United States poet (1899-1932)

   Cynewulf

   Anglo-Saxon poet (circa 9th century)

   Dante Alighieri

   an Italian poet famous for writing the Divine Comedy that describes a journey through Hell and purgatory and paradise guided by Virgil and his idealized Beatrice (1265-1321)

   Walter John de la Mare

   English poet remembered for his verse for children (1873-1956)

   Emily Dickinson

   United States poet noted for her mystical and unrhymed poems (1830-1886)

   John Donne

   English clergyman and metaphysical poet celebrated as a preacher (1572-1631)

   John Dryden

   the outstanding poet and dramatist of the Restoration (1631-1700)

   Thomas Stearns Eliot

   British poet (born in the United States) who won the Nobel prize for literature; his plays are outstanding examples of modern verse drama (1888-1965)

   Edward Fitzgerald

   English poet remembered primarily for his free translation of the poetry of Omar Khayyam (1809-1883)

   Robert Lee Frost

   United States poet famous for his lyrical poems on country life in New England (1874-1963)

   Frederico Garcia Lorca

   Spanish poet and dramatist who was shot dead by Franco's soldiers soon after the start of the Spanish Civil War (1898-1936)

   William Schwenk Gilbert

   a librettist who was a collaborator with Sir Arthur Sullivan in a famous series of comic operettas (1836-1911)

   Allen Ginsberg

   United States poet of the beat generation (1926-1997)

   Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

   German poet and novelist and dramatist who lived in Weimar (1749-1832)

   Luis de Gongora y Argote

   a Spanish poet whose work was characterized by an affected elegance of style (1561-1627)

   Thomas Gray

   English poet best known for his elegy written in a country churchyard (1716-1771)

   Robert Herrick

   English lyric poet (1591-1674)

   Hesiod

   Greek poet whose existing works describe rural life and the genealogies of the gods and the beginning of the world (eighth century BC)

   Hugo von Hoffmannsthal

   German poet who wrote libretti for operas by Richard Strauss (1874-1929)

   James Hogg

   Scottish writer of rustic verse (1770-1835)

   Homer

   ancient Greek epic poet who is believed to have written the Iliad and the Odyssey (circa 850 BC)

   Gerard Manley Hopkins

   English poet (1844-1889)

   Horace

   Roman lyric poet said to have influenced English poetry (65-8 BC)

   Alfred Edward Housman

   English poet (1859-1936)

   Edward James Hughes

   English poet (born in 1930)

   Victor-Marie Hugo

   French poet and novelist and dramatist; leader of the romantic movement in France (1802-1885)

   Henrik Johan Ibsen

   realistic Norwegian author who wrote plays on social and political themes (1828-1906)

   Randall Jarrell

   United States poet (1914-1965)

   John Robinson Jeffers

   United States poet who wrote about California (1887-1962)

   Juan Ramon Jimenez

   Spanish lyric poet (1881-1958)

   Benjamin Jonson

   English dramatist and poet who was the first real poet laureate of England (1572-1637)

   Erik Axel Karlfeldt

   Swedish poet whose works incorporate Swedish customs and folklore (1864-1931)

   John Keats

   Englishman and romantic poet (1795-1821)

   Francis Scott Key

   United States lawyer and poet who wrote a poem after witnessing the British attack on Baltimore during the War of 1812; the poem was later set to music and entitled `The Star-Spangled Banner' (1779-1843)

   Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock

   German poet (1724-1803)

   Nicholas Vachel Lindsay

   United States poet who traveled the country trading his poems for room and board (1879-1931)

   Li Po

   Chinese lyric poet (700-762)

   Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

   United States poet remembered for his long narrative poems (1807-1882)

   Richard Lovelace

   English poet (1618-1857)

   Amy Lowell

   United States poet (1874-1925)

   Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr.

   United States poet (1917-1977)

   Titus Lucretius Carus

   Roman philosopher and poet; in a long didactic poem he tried to provide a scientific explanation of the universe (96-55 BC)

   Archibald MacLeish

   United States poet (1892-1982)

   Stephane Mallarme

   French symbolist poet noted for his free verse (1842-1898)

   Osip Emilevich Mandelstam

   Russian poet who died in a prison camp (1891-1938)

   Giambattista Marini

   Italian poet (1569-1625)

   Christopher Marlowe

   English poet and playwright who introduced blank verse as a form of dramatic expression; was stabbed to death in a tavern brawl (1564-1593)

   Jose Julian Marti

   Cuban poet and revolutionary who fought for Cuban independence from Spain (1853-1895)

   Martial

   Roman poet noted for epigrams (first century BC)

   Andrew Marvell

   English poet (1621-1678)

   John Edward Masefield

   English poet (1878-1967)

   Edgar Lee Masters

   United States poet (1869-1950)

   Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovski

   Soviet poet; leader of Russian futurism (1893-1930)

   George Meredith

   English novelist and poet (1828-1909)

   John Milton

   English poet; remembered primarily as the author of an epic poem describing humanity's fall from grace (1608-1674)

   Marianne Craig Moore

   United States poet noted for irony and wit (1887-1872)

   Thomas Moore

   Irish poet who wrote nostalgic and patriotic verse (1779-1852)

   William Morris

   English poet and craftsman (1834-1896)

   Louis Charles Alfred de Musset

   French poet and writer (1810-1857)

   Neftali Ricardo Reyes

   Chilean poet (1904-1973)

   Alfred Noyes

   English poet (1880-1958)

   Omar Khayyam

   Persian poet and mathematician and astronomer whose poetry was popularized by Edward Fitzgerald's translation (1050-1123)

   Publius Ovidius Naso

   Roman poet remembered for his elegiac verses on love (43 BC - AD 17)

   Francis Turner Palgrave

   English poet (1824-1897)

   Francesco Petrarca

   an Italian poet famous for love lyrics (1304-1374)

   Pindar

   Greek lyric poet remembered for his odes (518?-438? BC)

   Sylvia Plath

   United States writer and poet (1932-1963)

   Edgar Allan Poe

   United States writer and poet (1809-1849)

   Alexander Pope

   English poet and satirist (1688-1744)

   Ezra Loomis Pound

   United States writer who lived in Europe; strongly influenced the development of modern literature (1885-1972)

   Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin

   Russian poet (1799-1837)

   Jean Baptiste Racine

   French advocate of Jansenism; tragedian who based his works on Greek and Roman themes (1639-1699)

   James Whitcomb Riley

   United States poet (1849-1916)

   Rainer Maria Rilke

   German poet (born in Austria) whose imagery and mystic lyricism influenced 20th-century German literature (1875-1926)

   Jean Nicholas Arthur Rimbaud

   French poet whose work influenced the surrealists (1854-1891)

   Edwin Arlington Robinson

   United States poet; author of narrative verse (1869-1935)

   Edmond Rostand

   French dramatist and poet whose play immortalized Cyrano de Bergerac (1868-1918)

   Alan Seeger

   United States poet killed in World War I (1888-1916)

   Anne Sexton

   United States poet (1928-1974)

   William Shakespeare

   English poet and dramatist considered one of the greatest English writers (1564-1616)

   Percy Bysshe Shelley

   Englishman and romantic poet (1792-1822)

   Taras Grigoryevich Shevchenko

   Ukranian poet (1814-1861)

   Sir Philip Sidney

   English poet (1554-1586)

   Shelby Silverstein

   United States poet and cartoonist remembered for his stories and poems for children (1932-1999)

   Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell

   English poet (1887-1964)

   Robert Southey

   English poet and friend of Wordsworth and Coleridge (1774-1843)

   Sir Stephen Harold Spender

   English poet and critic (1909-1995)

   Edmund Spenser

   English poet who wrote an allegorical romance celebrating Elizabeth I in the Spenserian stanza (1552-1599)

   Wallace Stevens

   United States poet (1879-1955)

   Sir John Suckling

   English poet and courtier (1609-1642)

   Algernon Charles Swinburne

   English poet (1837-1909)

   Arthur Symons

   English poet (1865-1945)

   Edmund John Millington Synge

   Irish poet and playwright whose plays are based on rural Irish life (1871-1909)

   Torquato Tasso

   Italian poet who wrote an epic poem about the capture of Jerusalem during the First Crusade (1544-1595)

   John Orley Allen Tate

   United States poet and critic (1899-1979)

   Sara Teasdale

   United States poet (1884-1933)

   Alfred Lord Tennyson

   Englishman and Victorian poet (1809-1892)

   Thespis

   Greek poet who is said to have originated Greek tragedy (sixth century BC)

   Dylan Marlais Thomas

   Welsh poet (1914-1953)

   John Trumbull

   American satirical poet (1750-1831)

   Samuel Rosenstock

   French poet (born in Romania) who was one of the cofounders of the dada movement (1896-1963)

   Johann Ludwig Uhland

   German romantic poet (1787-1862)

   Paul Verlaine

   French symbolist poet (1844-1896)

   Francois Villon

   French poet (flourished around 1460)

   Publius Vergilius Maro

   a Roman poet; author of the epic poem `Aeneid' (70-19 BC)

   Andrei Voznesenski

   Russian poet (born in 1933)

   Robert Penn Warren

   United States writer and poet (1905-1989)

   Isaac Watts

   English poet and theologian (1674-1748)

   Phillis Wheatley

   American poet (born in Africa) who was the first recognized Black writer in America (1753-1784)

   Walt Whitman

   United States poet who celebrated the greatness of America (1819-1892)

   John Greenleaf Whittier

   United States poet best known for his nostalgic poems about New England (1807-1892)

   William Carlos Williams

   United States poet (1883-1963)

   William Wordsworth

   a romantic English poet whose work was inspired by the Lake District where he spent most of his life (1770-1850)

   Sir Thomas Wyatt

   English poet who introduced the sonnet form to English literature (1503-1542)

   Elinor Morton Hoyt Wylie

   United States poet (1885-1928)

   William Butler Yeats

   Irish poet and dramatist (1865-1939)

   Yevgeni Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko

   Russian poet who expressed the feelings of the post-Stalinist generation (born in 1933)

   Edward Young

   English poet (1683-1765)

   types:

   bard

   a lyric poet

   elegist

   the author of a mournful poem lamenting the dead

   odist

   a poet who writes odes

   poetess

   a woman poet

   poet laureate

   the poet officially appointed to the royal household in Great Britain

   poet laureate

   a poet who is unofficially regarded as holding an honorary position in a particular group or region

   sonneteer

   a poet who writes sonnets

   type of:

   author, writer

   a person who writes (books or stories or articles or the like) professionally (for pay)