Ranking The Best Poets Ever

In 1971, James Dickey wrote a letter listing the top ten living American poets. Slotted in third place behind Ezra Pound and W.H. Auden was...James Dickey! Arrogant? Sure. But that kind of hubris isn't unprecedented in the poetry world. Let's not forget John Milton's belief that Paradise Lost might "justify the ways of God to men"--in iambic pentameter, no less--or Shelley's more sweeping claim that "poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world." Maybe we should admire Mr. Dickey for having the humility to only award himself the bronze. I do love that he candidly answered the question. It's a fun one to ask about a highly subjective art.

Inspired by Dickey's list, I did some digging for opinions on the greatest poets of all time. It turns out the British press is all over this. The Guardian has printed scores of poetry-related top ten lists, and just last month The Telegraph published their "perfect library" which featured these ten "perfect" poets:

1. Shakespeare
2. Dante
3. Chaucer
4. William Wordsworth
5. John Keats
6. T.S. Eliot
7. John Milton
8. William Blake
9. W.B. Yeats
10. Ted Hughes

Did you make the same face I did when you read Ted Hughes? I like his poetry a lot, but he doesn't belong here (I'd prefer it if Sylvia Plath were on the list). You can make a good case for the rest, though one commenter rightly reminded The Telegraph that there's more to the world than Europe and America.

In 2000, British poet laureate Andrew Motion gave The Guardian a list of his top ten poetry books of all time (kudos to him for not listing anything by Andrew Motion).

1. Lyrical Ballads by Anon (1798) (Wordsworth and Coleridge)
2. Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes and Other Poems by John Keats (1820)
3. Poems, Chiefly Lyrical by Alfred (not yet Lord) Tennyson (1830)
4. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (1855)
5. North of Boston by Robert Frost (1914)
6. Poems by Edward Thomas (1917)
7. Poems by W.H. Auden (1930)
8. The Less Deceived by Philip Larkin (1955)
9. North by Seamus Heaney (1975)
10. Complete Poems by Elizabeth Bishop (1983)

Edward Thomas--a World War I poet--must have a far better reputation across the pond, and ninth place also seems awfully high for Seamus Heaney's book. Overall though, I think Motion is very fair. The British public couldn't have been too pleased that he put three Yanks in the top ten--two in the top five.

Speaking of Yanks, poets.org--the official site of the Academy of American Poets--keeps a running list of the most searched for poets on the site, giving a good indication of popularity. Not surprisingly, the list includes more accessible poets like Collins, Giovanni, Soto, Oliver and Olds, and it skews heavily towards Americans. Here are the results from 2007:

Contemporary

1. Charles Simic
2. Billy Collins
3. Nikki Giovanni
4. Gary Soto
5. Adrienne Rich
6. Donald Hall
7. Rita Dove
8. Mary Oliver
9. Liam Rector
10. Sharon Olds

Historical

1. Langston Hughes
2. Emily Dickinson
3. Walt Whitman
4. Robert Frost
5. E.E. Cummings
6. Edgar Allan Poe
7. William Carlos Williams
8. Sylvia Plath
9. W. H. Auden
10. Pablo Neruda

Did they exclude Maya Angelou from the list? I'm surprised she isn't the most searched for contemporary poet.

So who makes your top ten? I would have to include Shakespeare, Keats, Whitman, Eliot and Yeats...

 

Comments

[FearlessFreep]

10:50 PM on 07/30/2008

Notice that nine of the Telegraph's ten "perfect" poets wrote in the English language. Here's some they missed:

Homer
Sappho
Basho
Omar Khayyam
Virgil
Catullus

[bbrecht]

09:05 PM on 07/30/2008

Oh yes and Jack Gilbert!!!!! Who do I have to knock off my list to add Jack Gilbert? Impossible.

[bbrecht]

09:03 PM on 07/30/2008

Fun question, my list changes daily, (yep I'm a poetry geek) here is today's list:

1. Walt Whitman
2. Emily Dickinson
3. Pablo Neruda
4. Mahmoud Darwish (Palestinian Poet)
5. Gwendolyn Brooks
6. Langston Hughes
7. June Jordan
8. Adrienne Rich
9. Mark Doty
10. Naomi Shihab Nye

[swimfish]

06:46 PM on 07/30/2008

Other than #1, I imagine my list would change daily. 10 living Americans:

W.S. Merwin.
Jack Gilbert
Bob Hass
Li-Young Lee
Louise Gluck
Andrew Hudgins
Mary Oliver
Bob Creeley
James Tate
Marvin Bell

[meo]

10:51 AM on 07/30/2008

Although I agree ranking poets, or much else, is a a fairly empty practice, I will take this opportunity to explore the poets I haven't heard of that others are praising. Any article on poetry is an all too rare treat. Our nation and culture could use a daily dose of poetry, I am nostalgic for Robert Frost reading at Kennedy's windy inauguration. I have also found when reading non-English poets the exact translation can mean the difference between enjoying and dismissing a great poets work; so I would appreciate commenters being specific about the translation they love for foreign poets. I find Stephen Mitchell's translations of Rilke to be the best, and anything by Daniel Ladinsky, especially his versions of Hafiz. Some of my favorites I haven't seen mentioned: Theodore Roethke (American original), Fernando Pessoa (Portuguese, fascinating genius beyond category and loved in his native land) Yevgeny Yevtushenko, the best reader I ever heard live, and Hafiz, my favorite poet, a Sufi whose work has lasted centuries and is still common knowledge in his homeland.

[johnnyjust]

06:51 PM on 07/28/2008

World’s Worst Poet

I am the world’s worst poet
but I don’t noet
and hence cannot croet
so I’ll get in my boet
which sits in my moet
and won’t need to toet
because I can roet
with my big dinghy

And goodnight.

[curly2]

05:06 PM on 07/28/2008

Are we judging these writers on their entire body of work, or just poetry?

If just poetry, I'd put John Donne on the list before Shakespeare. I've always loved Donne's imagery and metaphors-- so unusual and beautiful.

[pinocchio]

07:53 AM on 07/28/2008

Pushkin is a strange omission.

[playchessordie]

02:11 AM on 07/28/2008

Louise Bogan - devastatingly beautiful

[NoOtherWay]

12:57 AM on 07/28/2008

No Asians or Africans?

[TurgidCaterwauling]

11:26 PM on 07/27/2008

Such lists are subjective and will always be debatable. But, my God, how wonderful to find an article about poetry. Amid all the celebrity and political blather, to discover that poetry matters to some readers of Huffo is gratifying.

Ten of my (innumerable) favorites:

Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night
The Hollow Men
Snake
Dulce et Decorum est
My Last Duchess
Chicago
To His Coy Mistress
The Red Wheelbarrow
Stopping by Woods
A Dream Deferred

[avicenna]

10:39 PM on 07/27/2008

Realizing the egocentricism of this list limits nominations to be of English origin - Rumi would have to be included regarless since he is the best selling poet in America, and he certainly is at the very top of my "of all time" list which includes Jon Donne in the top 10.

[Blutus]

09:59 PM on 07/27/2008

And the best book of poetry written by an American
in the last 25 years is

After the Lost War

by Andrew Hudgins.

One of the best books I've ever read, actually.


Then there is Les Murray, August Kleinzahler, to worry about.

[gouge]

09:06 AM on 07/28/2008

Blutus -checkout sharkforum.org -where we have as poet in residence -the very fine poet Dr. Simone Muench -who features a new book each week......I am going to pick up After The Lost War-

[gouge]

09:22 PM on 07/27/2008

These lists are strange -and seem to have been thought up mostly by people outside of contemporary thought about poetry: where, on any of these lists is the poet that most contemporary poets - including at least one recent poet laureat of this country, consider the most central, important and best poet in recent history?

I'm talking about WALLACE STEVENS!

Its none other than 'Harold Bloom who called Wallace Stevens the "best and most representative" American poet of the time[, no Western writer since Sophocles has had such a late flowering of artistic genius.'

sheeeesh! people, get a clue-

[Blutus]

09:53 PM on 07/27/2008

AMEN!!!!

[KillgoreTrout43]

07:17 AM on 07/28/2008

Rilkey flowered lateaer in life. Tremendously so.

[Tages72]

08:59 PM on 07/27/2008

I'm going by English language only, and in no particular order. Some are there due to their historical significance, others have influenced me with their work on a personal level.

1. Robert Frost
2. William Shakespeare
3. Walt Whitman
4. Langston Hughes
5. William Butler Yeats
6. Edna St. Vincent Millay
7. John Keats
8. W.H. Auden
9. Edgar Allan Poe
10. Carl Sandburg

Hispanic culture has also given us greats such as Jose Marti, Agustin Acosta, Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, Pablo Neruda, and Octavio Paz, among many too numerous to remember.

If you go country by country, there is enough talent for a top ten list to be made anywhere.