# top 3-5 poets of all time **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 26, 2015, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-3-5-poets-of-all-time/738598 "2015-11-26T03:20:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-3-5-poets-of-all-time/738598/21 "2015-11-26T16:56:03Z")
Ogden Nash Ogden Nash Ogden Nash ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-3-5-poets-of-all-time/738598/22 "2015-11-26T17:26:06Z")
1: T. S. Eliot 2: Wm. Shakspr. 3: Robert Frost 4: Shel Silverstein 5: Edgar Allen Poe Though I’m tempted to say Douglas Hofstadter. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-3-5-poets-of-all-time/738598/23 "2015-11-26T17:43:59Z")
As long as I don’t have to explain why other poets deserve to be excluded, I’d have to say that the poet I look back at most often is A.E. Housman. He was criticized in his day for writing puerile verse, and later for being possibly a homosexual. These days, people are sure he was a homosexual but now he’s taken more seriously, not less so because of it. He was also dismissed as a pagan, though I never quite understood that charge. These days it would be his searing misogyny that he’d be nailed for, but I don’t think that necessarily plays a big part in his verse. But I’d say he wrote chiefly for young men. Mostly it’s around themes of youthful angst, and his book A Shropshire Lad explicitly communicates to future angsty young men that at least someone has felt like they did before. Otherwise, Shakespeare and Donne continue to impress. Whoever doesn’t like Frost or Thomas is probably just being contrary for its own sake. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-3-5-poets-of-all-time/738598/24 "2015-11-26T19:32:07Z")
[ol] [li]Sappho[/li][li]Jalal al-Din Rumi[/li][li]Mirabai[/li][li]Kathleen Raine[/li][li]Patti Smith[/li][/ol] ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-3-5-poets-of-all-time/738598/25 "2015-11-26T20:52:00Z")
> [@Johnny\_Angel](#): > > I’d have to say that the poet I look back at most often is A.E. Housman. He was criticized in his day for writing puerile verse, and later for being possibly a homosexual. These days, people are sure he was a homosexual but now he’s taken more seriously, not less so because of it. A homosexual poet? Don’t be ridiculous! ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-3-5-poets-of-all-time/738598/26 "2015-11-26T20:58:11Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > No love for Charles Bukowski? ☹ I loved Buk’s novels and short stories when I was an undergrad in the late '70s (one of my roommates was German and told me to read him well before he caught on big in 'Murica). Don’t go back and re-read him now that I’m an old guy, kinda like I wouldn’t bother re-reading Vonnegut. Never thought too much of his poems. Like Brautigan, another writer best enjoyed while young and callow, Bukowski’s prose is entertaining but his poetry is terribly self-indulgent. ---
**Author:** ![CatastrophicFailure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@CatastrophicFailure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CatastrophicFailure)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-3-5-poets-of-all-time/738598/27 "2015-11-26T21:56:54Z")
It changes, but right now (in no particular order): Naomi Shihab Nye Maya Angelou Mary Oliver Wendell Berry ---
**Author:** ![eclectic\_wench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ac91a4/32.png) [@eclectic\_wench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eclectic_wench)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-3-5-poets-of-all-time/738598/28 "2015-11-26T21:58:34Z")
Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas, Philip Larkin and Pablo Neruda, in no particular order. I’d have to think about a fifth. Probably T.S. Eliot. Now I want to go dig out all my poetry books… ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-3-5-poets-of-all-time/738598/29 "2015-11-26T22:12:50Z")
It’s easier to think of favorite poems than poets. Many of mine have been mentioned so far. The haiku poets rank highest for me (Basho, Issa, Buson, Shiki) then the Romantics (Shelley, Byron, Keats) and some random ones whose specific poems matter to me (De La Mare, Bryant, cummings). [A Little Treasury of Modern Poetry - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Little_Treasury_of_Modern_Poetry) would probably have most of the ones I haven’t named specifically. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-3-5-poets-of-all-time/738598/30 "2015-11-26T23:08:25Z")
Ok–there’s a vast difference between **top** poets of all time and **favorite** poets. You can recognize somebody’s greatness even if that person is not one of your personal favorites. OP, which did you want? ---
**Author:** ![dirty\_hippie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@dirty\_hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dirty_hippie)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2015, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-3-5-poets-of-all-time/738598/31 "2015-11-27T06:00:46Z")
What…no John Milton? Chaucer? Really, it’s hard to pick just 5. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2015, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-3-5-poets-of-all-time/738598/32 "2015-11-27T07:23:06Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > OP, which did you want? I think it’s clear the OP wanted the top 3-5 of our personal favourites, not our favourite of the top 3-5 poets (I certainly wouldn’t put Leipoldt in the top of a list of poets). ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2015, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-3-5-poets-of-all-time/738598/33 "2015-11-27T12:26:43Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Though I’m tempted to say Douglas Hofstadter. That a nice call. It improves the back to the basket scoring options for the starting 5. ---
**Author:** ![Donegal\_Dragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Donegal\_Dragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donegal_Dragon)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2015, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-3-5-poets-of-all-time/738598/34 "2015-11-27T13:55:45Z")
Seamus Heaney W.B. Yeats Robert Frost Walt Whitman Robert Burns ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2015, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-3-5-poets-of-all-time/738598/35 "2015-11-27T15:53:01Z")
Emily Dickinson Stephen Crane e.e. Cummings William Carlos Williams Ogden Nash ---
**Author:** ![thanatic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/97f17d/32.png) [@thanatic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thanatic)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2015, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-3-5-poets-of-all-time/738598/36 "2015-11-28T06:52:11Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > 1: T. S. Eliot > 2: Wm. Shakspr. > 3: Robert Frost > 4: Shel Silverstein > 5: Edgar Allen Poe > > Though I’m tempted to say Douglas Hofstadter. i never read Elitot…but i know “The Waste Land” is considered like the most influential poem of the 20th century ---
**Author:** ![Enterprise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/76d3ee/32.png) [@Enterprise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enterprise)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2015, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-3-5-poets-of-all-time/738598/37 "2015-11-28T11:32:51Z")
Definitely Emily Dickinson, who is deep, wry, funny, and has an outstanding sense of what you can do wth words. Too many favorites to count, but probably it would be I Dwell in Possibility. Or Because I could not stop for death (the “kindly” just gets to me somehow). William Shakespeare. Enough said, really. The Sonnets are astounding when they’re great. Wallace Stevens. Sunday Morning is my favorite, but he’s such an oustanding stylist. Poe, in fact, though I am not sure if he’ s good. The Raven is both abysmal in its repetitiveness and simply great, especially read aloud. And then perhaps Joachim Ringelnatz, who is for German what Ogden Nash is for English… ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2015, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-3-5-poets-of-all-time/738598/38 "2015-11-28T15:28:24Z")
Robert Frost, William Shakespeare and Bob Dylan. Trust America to give the world one of its best poets ever and not realize it for fifty years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-3-5-poets-of-all-time/738598.md?page=1)