There are a lot of great poets and no Top 10 list will ever satisfy everyone. And personally, I wouldn't write a Top 10 without Whitman or Yeats. But what's here is most certainly unobjectionable; Rilke and Pushkin certainly belong and Eliot is a good #1. (Until Louise Gluck - whose Nobel, in my opinion, was a concession to NYC literati after they were butthurt about Bob Dylan - Eliot was the only American with poetry as his/her first calling to win the literature Nobel)
As for translation, it's a challenge but sometimes exceptional translators do their subjects exceptional justice. Several such great poets include Poland's Fourth Bard Cyprian Norwid (Danuta Borchardt translation), Fernando Pessoa and his heteronyms (Richard Zenith translations) and Imre Madach's The Tragedy of Man (by George Szirtes, an exceptional translator). A special shoutout should also go to the collaboration of Polish poet Stanislaw Baranczak with Seamus Heaney, which resulted in a marvelous translation of Jan Kochanowski's Laments. All of these poets are titans in their respective cultures.
Your poems have been added to my reading list! I review Substackers every now and then to promote them. Would love to review your poems at some point!
As a Coleridge partisan, I take a certain pleasure in seeing him take the English Romantic spot instead of Wordsworth.
What do you think of the take that it is wrong to spend one’s time reading lyric poets, if one does not know the original language, since subtle associations and sounds are untranslatable?
The reason I was so adamant about learning languages early in my life was so I could read their poetry in the original language. Can confirm that French, Russian, Spanish, and German poetry in translation does not do their authors justice.
Agree … but I think the problem with translated poetry is a bit deeper than that. Pablo Neruda said something along the lines of not being able to complain about about his work being translated because they where translating his words, but if he were writing the poem in that language he would probably choose different words. That notion has made me paranoid about translated anything.
I can confirm this for literary Chinese also. Pound might be an interesting exception. But is he translating, or is he writing original poetry after taking extensive advice from the old masters?
How would you tell a student who only knows English to approach one of these non-English writers?
But if you still want to read poetry in translation, my recommendation is to buy a dual-language version and read the original out loud. You might not understand it, but you’ll hear how it sounds—and so much of the beauty in poetry is in the sound. I did this with Dante, and between my Spanish, French, and Latin, I got the gist of what he must be like in the original.
What an excellent list, Liza! I'm just getting interested in poetry myself and this is very helpful, thank you so much for sharing! I'd heard of almost everyone on this list with the exception of Rainer Maria Rilke. I knew William Shakespeare would HAVE to be on the list! How can you make a list of Top 10 poets without the godfather of poetry? I chuckled at the part where you mentioned yourself with the bonus mention. Not because your poetry isn't good or because I thought you were being arrogant or anything like that, but just because it's such a Liza thing to do. On the part about Dante, knowing you someday you will learn Italian (and probably relatively quickly given you talent for languages) and read Dante as it was originally written. All ten of these poets were absolutely brilliant and you couldn't have the western literary canon without any one of them. I think Sylvia Plath definitely belongs on here. She died way too young, but she left us a massive collection of some of the most profound books and poetry in the history of mankind. I also can relate to her and the struggles she faced in her life as I also have depression.
I wouldn't change your list at all its pretty darn good and you know much more about literature than I. But I would like to add some honorable mentions if I might: Homer, Dante Alighieri, Lord Byron, Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Rudyard Kipling, William Blake, Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, John Milton, Robert Burns, Geoffrey Chaucer, and D.H. Lawrence. It's definitely a tragedy John Keats only lived to be 25. He sadly died of a disease that has been all but eradicated today, Tuberculosis. May he rest in peace. William Blake was quite a fascinating character. He was WAY ahead of his time. He advocated for the abolition of slavery, full racial equality, full gender equality, the acceptance of homosexuality, and de-stigmatizing sex work. Not bad for someone born in 1757! Ezra Pound was a piece of garbage as a human being but a gifted poet no doubt. He was a virulent antisemite who admired Adolf Hitler, embraced Benito Mussolini's fascism and wrote for Sir Oswald Mosley's publication in Britain. He also supported Eugenics, praised the Holocaust in Italy and told American GIs to throw down their weapons and surrender. Nonetheless, his poetry which spans SEVEN decades is among the most profound ever written. Too be sure you are correct Liza, separating the art from the artist is always the way to go otherwise a lot of great art would end up getting discarded.
Since you were nice enough to recommend the tremendous works of poetry to me and the Pens and Poison audience, I thought I’d recommend some great non-fiction history books to you I think you'd enjoy reading someday:
A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Mark Dawidziak
Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning by Nigel Biggar
Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of Swashbuckling Jews Carved Out in an Empire in the New World in Their Quest for Treasure, Religious Freedom--and Revenge by Edward Kritzler
Splendid Azerbaijan: The History and Culture of the Land of Fire by Glen Alberto Salazar
The Rebel Romanov: Julie of Saxe-Coburg, the Empress Russia Never Had by Helen Rappaport
A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion by Tom Segev
When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry by Gal Beckerman
A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution by David A. Nichols
Israel's Black Panthers: The Radicals Who Punctured a Nation's Founding Myth by Asaf Elia-Shalev
In Defense of Andrew Jackson by Bradley J. Birzer
Bonus :) The Archive Thief: The Man Who Salvaged French Jewish History in the Wake of the Holocaust by Lisa Moses Leff
Excellent top 10 list. Especially I like that you included Sylvia Plath (only lady on the list) even if she may not be easily understood and accorded the honors the men always receive. One reason people don't get Sylvia Plath is that we live in a patriarchal society which instantly more values what a man writes than a woman. I think both Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes were struggling for the same highest fame quotient. And Hughes had way more advantages yet still must have felt threatened by Sylvia Plath's brilliant. And the fact she wrote about automaticly lessens her achievement. So I am happy she's on your list.
Thanks Liza. I am a complete beginner when it comes to poetry, but I am overcoming my fears of feeling foolish for not understanding what I am reading. Appreciate this primer on your personal favorites.
It's a fun one and a nice surprise. Like finding out about Pushkin's naughty epigrams.
But I will be forever in awe of Catullus 85: in just 14 words, there is a conflict, a wordplay, a couple of metaphors, and a surgically precise analysis of one's feelings.
Amongst my favorite poets I've read or listened to to date are: Walt Whitman, Shakespeare, Billy Collins, Ruth Stone, Thomas Hardy, Robert Frost, Richard Wright, Charlie Simic, Don Hall, Allen Ginsberg (especially when he performs them), Philip Levine, Elizabeth Bishop, Pablo Neruda, Emily Dickinson, ee cummings, Mark Doty, Aidrianne Rich, Wendell Barry ... really many others, too. Your Top Ten List is a good one. Poetry feels deeply personal and what speaks to me, might not speak to you and vice versa. Recently I read, "Northern Voices: 30 Years on the Poetry Beat" by Mike Pride, former Editor at the Concord Monitor. The book are his observations of the New Hampshire poets who he covered and befriended, all of whom wrote in the shadow left by Robert Frost. Pride excerpts numerous poems to put in context his various stories. Its a fascinating book about poetry and place, really well written, too. I like the butterfly nature of poetry, that we hear a poem or two and think, "WOW, what a great poet!" and then promptly forget their name. But then we hear them read another poem and it wallops us afresh. I make a point to read poetry volumes a few times each year to keep expanding my retained knowledge of consistently-remarkable poets. But I treasure the surprise and discovery, too. And then their are the singing poets: Woody Guthrie, John Prine, Jimmie Rodgers, and an infinite list before and after those ...
It is a good list as it is incredibly difficult to limit to ten poets across recorded time. I think including Plat simply because the woker crowd might object if she's not included, is a real mistake. Even reading a great English version of Dante's Divine Comedy, say by Dorothy Sayers, will make it obvious Dante and Plath are in different universes, not just solar systems. You could easily have justified John Milton, George Herbert and others from an earlier time. Of course, the tendency is for some to avoid these poets purely because of chronological snobbery. But overall, I commend you for even attempting the impossible.
A very idiosyncratic list, enjoyable to read and disagree with. I notice the omission of Virgil, Homer, Dante. I’d personally place Anna Akhmatova above Plath, and also Emily Dickinson and many others. I’d include John Donne in my personal list or canon. Also, on a personal level, Robert Burns, maybe one of the Sufi poets, maybe even squeeze in Tagore. I love Rilke but I don’t know if he would make my list and Steven’s even less, though I am duly impressed by him. I like that you included Pushkin. That seems an orthodox-ly Russian thing to do. There’s probably quite a large number of luminaries I’m neglecting like Horace and such. Also Petrarch.
I am slightly confused by your subjectivity for the top ten poets. Of course, everybody has his/her favorite poets, but when you recommend or even write a guide, your teaching could be more objective. Besides W. Stivence and S. T. Coleridge, I have all your recommendations on my bookshelves. But on that merit, do you include Ezra Pound in that category? Or, knowing Russian, how could you miss or compare strong emotional force, the volume of the life situations, and the end of both poets, S. Plath and M. Tsvetaeva? One was young and mentally ill and committed suicide. The other went through her life in two countries, the persecution of the whole family, left in total solitude, and deliberately committed suicide, leaving us with the treasure of her poetry. By the way, I came to Rilke through Tsvetava and Pasternak. Of course, Russian poetry loses all its spontaneity, music, and originality of style in the translation, but the richness of content stays.
I am enjoying reading Marina Tsvetayeva’s poetry right now, after having read another volume of Alhmatova, and Pasternak’s short biography, and I would like to read Tsvetayeva’s correspondence with Rilke and Pasternak. I’m also greatly enjoying reading Gary Saul Morson’s book on Russian literature. Though he mainly focuses intentionally on the novelists, he helps explain aspects of Russian literature and summons me back to it, realizing I have been errant.
This list upset me WAY less than I expected it to, but Emily Dickinson not being on here is nuts. I think she is the single finest lyric poet ever to write in English. For sheer poetic midichlorian count, I wouldn’t put anybody above her except Shakespeare (counting the plays).
And if we are awarding “influential” points to any extent, then Wordsworth should be on here. Having Coleridge in his place is bizarre — the guy has like five poems. Five amazing poems, but still.
There are a lot of great poets and no Top 10 list will ever satisfy everyone. And personally, I wouldn't write a Top 10 without Whitman or Yeats. But what's here is most certainly unobjectionable; Rilke and Pushkin certainly belong and Eliot is a good #1. (Until Louise Gluck - whose Nobel, in my opinion, was a concession to NYC literati after they were butthurt about Bob Dylan - Eliot was the only American with poetry as his/her first calling to win the literature Nobel)
As for translation, it's a challenge but sometimes exceptional translators do their subjects exceptional justice. Several such great poets include Poland's Fourth Bard Cyprian Norwid (Danuta Borchardt translation), Fernando Pessoa and his heteronyms (Richard Zenith translations) and Imre Madach's The Tragedy of Man (by George Szirtes, an exceptional translator). A special shoutout should also go to the collaboration of Polish poet Stanislaw Baranczak with Seamus Heaney, which resulted in a marvelous translation of Jan Kochanowski's Laments. All of these poets are titans in their respective cultures.
Your poems have been added to my reading list! I review Substackers every now and then to promote them. Would love to review your poems at some point!
As a Coleridge partisan, I take a certain pleasure in seeing him take the English Romantic spot instead of Wordsworth.
What do you think of the take that it is wrong to spend one’s time reading lyric poets, if one does not know the original language, since subtle associations and sounds are untranslatable?
The reason I was so adamant about learning languages early in my life was so I could read their poetry in the original language. Can confirm that French, Russian, Spanish, and German poetry in translation does not do their authors justice.
Agree … but I think the problem with translated poetry is a bit deeper than that. Pablo Neruda said something along the lines of not being able to complain about about his work being translated because they where translating his words, but if he were writing the poem in that language he would probably choose different words. That notion has made me paranoid about translated anything.
I can confirm this for literary Chinese also. Pound might be an interesting exception. But is he translating, or is he writing original poetry after taking extensive advice from the old masters?
How would you tell a student who only knows English to approach one of these non-English writers?
Pick up a grammar book and start studying! 😂
But if you still want to read poetry in translation, my recommendation is to buy a dual-language version and read the original out loud. You might not understand it, but you’ll hear how it sounds—and so much of the beauty in poetry is in the sound. I did this with Dante, and between my Spanish, French, and Latin, I got the gist of what he must be like in the original.
“Why You Can’t Read Pushkin Without Learning Russian” is an article I would enjoy reading if you ever have the free time
Unironically, this is not a bad idea. Will add to my list.
What about Blake. That’s my guy
I like your choices, especially Eliot as number one, and if you can find it, Ted Hughes's reading of The Four Quartets is masterful.
What an excellent list, Liza! I'm just getting interested in poetry myself and this is very helpful, thank you so much for sharing! I'd heard of almost everyone on this list with the exception of Rainer Maria Rilke. I knew William Shakespeare would HAVE to be on the list! How can you make a list of Top 10 poets without the godfather of poetry? I chuckled at the part where you mentioned yourself with the bonus mention. Not because your poetry isn't good or because I thought you were being arrogant or anything like that, but just because it's such a Liza thing to do. On the part about Dante, knowing you someday you will learn Italian (and probably relatively quickly given you talent for languages) and read Dante as it was originally written. All ten of these poets were absolutely brilliant and you couldn't have the western literary canon without any one of them. I think Sylvia Plath definitely belongs on here. She died way too young, but she left us a massive collection of some of the most profound books and poetry in the history of mankind. I also can relate to her and the struggles she faced in her life as I also have depression.
I wouldn't change your list at all its pretty darn good and you know much more about literature than I. But I would like to add some honorable mentions if I might: Homer, Dante Alighieri, Lord Byron, Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Rudyard Kipling, William Blake, Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, John Milton, Robert Burns, Geoffrey Chaucer, and D.H. Lawrence. It's definitely a tragedy John Keats only lived to be 25. He sadly died of a disease that has been all but eradicated today, Tuberculosis. May he rest in peace. William Blake was quite a fascinating character. He was WAY ahead of his time. He advocated for the abolition of slavery, full racial equality, full gender equality, the acceptance of homosexuality, and de-stigmatizing sex work. Not bad for someone born in 1757! Ezra Pound was a piece of garbage as a human being but a gifted poet no doubt. He was a virulent antisemite who admired Adolf Hitler, embraced Benito Mussolini's fascism and wrote for Sir Oswald Mosley's publication in Britain. He also supported Eugenics, praised the Holocaust in Italy and told American GIs to throw down their weapons and surrender. Nonetheless, his poetry which spans SEVEN decades is among the most profound ever written. Too be sure you are correct Liza, separating the art from the artist is always the way to go otherwise a lot of great art would end up getting discarded.
Since you were nice enough to recommend the tremendous works of poetry to me and the Pens and Poison audience, I thought I’d recommend some great non-fiction history books to you I think you'd enjoy reading someday:
A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Mark Dawidziak
Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning by Nigel Biggar
Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of Swashbuckling Jews Carved Out in an Empire in the New World in Their Quest for Treasure, Religious Freedom--and Revenge by Edward Kritzler
Splendid Azerbaijan: The History and Culture of the Land of Fire by Glen Alberto Salazar
The Rebel Romanov: Julie of Saxe-Coburg, the Empress Russia Never Had by Helen Rappaport
A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion by Tom Segev
When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry by Gal Beckerman
A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution by David A. Nichols
Israel's Black Panthers: The Radicals Who Punctured a Nation's Founding Myth by Asaf Elia-Shalev
In Defense of Andrew Jackson by Bradley J. Birzer
Bonus :) The Archive Thief: The Man Who Salvaged French Jewish History in the Wake of the Holocaust by Lisa Moses Leff
Excellent top 10 list. Especially I like that you included Sylvia Plath (only lady on the list) even if she may not be easily understood and accorded the honors the men always receive. One reason people don't get Sylvia Plath is that we live in a patriarchal society which instantly more values what a man writes than a woman. I think both Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes were struggling for the same highest fame quotient. And Hughes had way more advantages yet still must have felt threatened by Sylvia Plath's brilliant. And the fact she wrote about automaticly lessens her achievement. So I am happy she's on your list.
Thanks Liza. I am a complete beginner when it comes to poetry, but I am overcoming my fears of feeling foolish for not understanding what I am reading. Appreciate this primer on your personal favorites.
No Brodsky, Mandelstam, Tsvetaeva, Pasternak? Or, on the less Russocentric note, no Auden? And no Homer? I object wholeheartedly :)
If I put too many Russian poets on here I would be flagged by the CIA.
For some reason, Auden never quite spoke to me in the same way that these poets do. As for Homer, see my note on Dante!
Yeah, fair enough.
My top-10 list would probably also feature Catullus, but that's probably more niche.
The most joyous moment of my Latin-learning days was when my classmates and I discovered Catullus 16
It's a fun one and a nice surprise. Like finding out about Pushkin's naughty epigrams.
But I will be forever in awe of Catullus 85: in just 14 words, there is a conflict, a wordplay, a couple of metaphors, and a surgically precise analysis of one's feelings.
Amongst my favorite poets I've read or listened to to date are: Walt Whitman, Shakespeare, Billy Collins, Ruth Stone, Thomas Hardy, Robert Frost, Richard Wright, Charlie Simic, Don Hall, Allen Ginsberg (especially when he performs them), Philip Levine, Elizabeth Bishop, Pablo Neruda, Emily Dickinson, ee cummings, Mark Doty, Aidrianne Rich, Wendell Barry ... really many others, too. Your Top Ten List is a good one. Poetry feels deeply personal and what speaks to me, might not speak to you and vice versa. Recently I read, "Northern Voices: 30 Years on the Poetry Beat" by Mike Pride, former Editor at the Concord Monitor. The book are his observations of the New Hampshire poets who he covered and befriended, all of whom wrote in the shadow left by Robert Frost. Pride excerpts numerous poems to put in context his various stories. Its a fascinating book about poetry and place, really well written, too. I like the butterfly nature of poetry, that we hear a poem or two and think, "WOW, what a great poet!" and then promptly forget their name. But then we hear them read another poem and it wallops us afresh. I make a point to read poetry volumes a few times each year to keep expanding my retained knowledge of consistently-remarkable poets. But I treasure the surprise and discovery, too. And then their are the singing poets: Woody Guthrie, John Prine, Jimmie Rodgers, and an infinite list before and after those ...
It is a good list as it is incredibly difficult to limit to ten poets across recorded time. I think including Plat simply because the woker crowd might object if she's not included, is a real mistake. Even reading a great English version of Dante's Divine Comedy, say by Dorothy Sayers, will make it obvious Dante and Plath are in different universes, not just solar systems. You could easily have justified John Milton, George Herbert and others from an earlier time. Of course, the tendency is for some to avoid these poets purely because of chronological snobbery. But overall, I commend you for even attempting the impossible.
i think they’re both very competent
My list would mostly be like yours—just in reverse. Rilke is my GOAT.
Alas, I have found a poetry wizard. Thank you Liza.
T.S. Eliot is properly ranked.
A very idiosyncratic list, enjoyable to read and disagree with. I notice the omission of Virgil, Homer, Dante. I’d personally place Anna Akhmatova above Plath, and also Emily Dickinson and many others. I’d include John Donne in my personal list or canon. Also, on a personal level, Robert Burns, maybe one of the Sufi poets, maybe even squeeze in Tagore. I love Rilke but I don’t know if he would make my list and Steven’s even less, though I am duly impressed by him. I like that you included Pushkin. That seems an orthodox-ly Russian thing to do. There’s probably quite a large number of luminaries I’m neglecting like Horace and such. Also Petrarch.
I am slightly confused by your subjectivity for the top ten poets. Of course, everybody has his/her favorite poets, but when you recommend or even write a guide, your teaching could be more objective. Besides W. Stivence and S. T. Coleridge, I have all your recommendations on my bookshelves. But on that merit, do you include Ezra Pound in that category? Or, knowing Russian, how could you miss or compare strong emotional force, the volume of the life situations, and the end of both poets, S. Plath and M. Tsvetaeva? One was young and mentally ill and committed suicide. The other went through her life in two countries, the persecution of the whole family, left in total solitude, and deliberately committed suicide, leaving us with the treasure of her poetry. By the way, I came to Rilke through Tsvetava and Pasternak. Of course, Russian poetry loses all its spontaneity, music, and originality of style in the translation, but the richness of content stays.
I am enjoying reading Marina Tsvetayeva’s poetry right now, after having read another volume of Alhmatova, and Pasternak’s short biography, and I would like to read Tsvetayeva’s correspondence with Rilke and Pasternak. I’m also greatly enjoying reading Gary Saul Morson’s book on Russian literature. Though he mainly focuses intentionally on the novelists, he helps explain aspects of Russian literature and summons me back to it, realizing I have been errant.
This list upset me WAY less than I expected it to, but Emily Dickinson not being on here is nuts. I think she is the single finest lyric poet ever to write in English. For sheer poetic midichlorian count, I wouldn’t put anybody above her except Shakespeare (counting the plays).
And if we are awarding “influential” points to any extent, then Wordsworth should be on here. Having Coleridge in his place is bizarre — the guy has like five poems. Five amazing poems, but still.
No Donne or Yeats is criminal too.
As expected near perfect list ; perhaps add Thomas Hardy