Who are your favorite PROFESSIONAL poets?

Who are the top 10-15 poets that inspire you, that you admire most?Meaning the profesionals(not P&Q members).Just curious as to the influences of other members.

Mine are as follows:

Jim Carroll
Edgar Allan Poe
Jorie Graham
David Berman
Rod McKuen
Leonard Cohen
Emily Dickinson
Michael Madsen(yes, the actor)
Jewel(though basic yet truthful)
Billy Collins
James Douglas Morrison(of the Doors)
Robert Frost

but also my greatest influences have been the songwriters/musicians:
Bob Dylan
Fish(Derek William Dick of the band Marillion)-my greatest influence of all
Trent Reznor
Michael Stipe
& various other bands

It is mainly musical for me. I do not read much poetry from a professional aspect, even though I know I should. I feel that my style of poetry lends itself to song writing.

Beck Hansen - Beck
James Fruitbat Carter - Carter USM

Samuel Taylor Coleridge is my favourite poet though, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is the best poem I have ever read and probably always will be.

However, the biggest influence on my poetry are the authors Neil Gaiman and Rex Stout.

Everything Neil Gaiman writes feels like it just falls from his mind onto the page without any effort and it is what I aspire to recreate more than anything.

Rex Stout on the other hand had a grasp on diction that very few people can understand. He wrote every one of his books without writing a second draft and they are just simply amazing to me. Yep, they're detective pulp fiction tales, but they are priceless all the same. I advise anyone who is interested in story telling to read any of his Nero Wolfe mysteries, they're brilliant.

Poe

Shakespeare

Emily Dickinson

eddie aka darkblueknight -
Mcgowanmayo - Grand barr prose -
moses vargas -
gloria -

Poe
TS Elliot
The Lizard King
Tolkien
The Big Bukowski
Michael Madsen (the actor....Mr. Blonde)

Edgar Allan Poe
&&
Robert Frost

These are some of the Poets I admire and are inspired by:

William Blake
Lord Byron
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Percy B. Shelley
William Wordsworth
John Keats
Robert Burns
Emerson
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sara Teasdale
John Donne
William Wordsworth
Pablo Neruda
Shakespeare
Dick Summer

Robert Frost

Emily Dickinson

Shakespeare

Edgar Allen poe

Langston Hughes

Shelley

Wallace Stevens

Walt Whitman

Mya Angelou

I like Emily Dickenson... Her nature poems are really beautiful

Poe is my favorite literary poet, most of my favorites are songwriters:

Jim Morrison
Bob Dylan
Stan Ridgway
Bruce Springsteen

Shakespeare
Maya Angelou
Carol Ann Duffy
Christina Rosetti
Langston Hughes
Stevie Smith

Byron, Keats, Ben Jonson, Hughes, Ginsberg, T.S. Eliot
Oh, and I grew up listening to Phil Collins, Bernie Toupin, broadway musicals, John Lennon, Paul McCartney

bump

I don't read a lot of professional poetry... Although, I should, shouldn't I?

Edgar Allen Poe
Shakespeare
Alfred Noyes

Songwriter:
Don McLean

Philip Larkin
W.H. Auden
John Betjeman
Maya Angelou

Maybe not a poet, but Anne Frank.

I like Shakespeare

My favorite song writer is Tristan Prettyman.

Edgar allan poe
emily dickinson
john Milton

What no Shel Silverstein?

I don't really know a lot of poets except for the ones on here but i like some of Robert Frost's poems.

I don't really know a lot of poets except for the ones on here but i like some of Robert Frost's poems.

Check out David Berman. and come on-the mere fact Jim Carrol is still alive is reason enough!Seriously there are many great poets out there.

Gary Jurechka

Gary Jurechka

whilst i frequently write poetry and read poets off P&Q, i have never voluntarily ventured into the world of the famous...

so i couldn't even name one. =P

SHEL SILVERSTEIN IS SOOOOO AWSOME I HAVE READ ALL HIS BOOKS I WISH I COULD CLAIM HIS POEMS MY OWN HE'S AWSOME!

Edgar Allen Poe- I know he is mainstream. But his poem "the bells" (from memory, don't exactly remember the title) and "The haunted palace". I love the complexity of meaning in his work, he was amazing.

Emily Dickinson- as strange, depressed and isolated as she was she truly was brilliant at writing short pieces of poetry.

Maya Angelou- Beautiful, political poems of modern days. Her poetry in civil rights is most inspirational. "Still I rise"

Robert Frost- "The Rose Family"= one of the simplest beauties I have ever read in poetry. He's a genious.

Silvia Plath- I admire her work, the dark tones of it, as well as political situations incorporated into some of her work.

E E Cummings- can't remember the name of the exact poem that I loved, but it was a visual poem. Very unique. I liked it

Davey Havok- Yes, lead singer of AFI. Ok, his latest songs are dreadful. However his poetic beauty in the last song on Sing The Sorrow, the middle narrated part... sheer brilliance.

Sylvia Plath

Shakespeare- his sonnets, exquisetly romantic
Edgar Allan Poe- dark, deadly, intriguing
Robert Louis Stevenson- wonders of childhood delights
Robert Frost- the greatest American poet
Pablo Neruda-the ultimate romantic love poet
Dr. Suess- timeless, silly, will stand forever as children's favorite
Elizabeth Barrett Browning- sad and hauntingly beautiful romantic
Emily Dickinson- one of the great female poets
Tupac Shakur- a great modern American poet....speaks to reality
Maya Angelou-great modern female poet

Also now thanks to posts on P&Q discussion board..

Rumi
A Shamloo
EE Cummings

Tupac.
Emily Dickinson.
Langston Hughes.
Gwendolyn Brooks.
Nikki Giovanni.
Alice Walker.
Cecil Brown [somewhat]
T.S. Elliot.
Shakespeare [i mostly like his books]
Robert Frost.
Octavio Paz [spanish]
Rafael Alberti [spanish]
Mario Benedetti [spanish]

Okeyyy. I didn't know I knew about so many poets. =/

Robert Frost
Shakespeare
poe

Ted Hughes. Especially his collection on the crow.

Shakespeare
John Lennon
Kurt Kobain
Dave Grohl(his foo fighters stuff)
Robert Plant
Pete Townshend
Bono
Shel Silverstein

I love Emily Dickenson, and Edgar Allen Poe.
Those are my ultimate favorites!

Dickinson
Poe
Frost
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Actual poets:
Poe
Frost
Dickinson
Thoreau
Emerson

songs lyricists:
Trent Reznor
Brian Warner
James Maynard Keenan
Amanda (can't remember her last name) from the Dresden Dolls
Chino Moreno

Maya Angelou
and Tupac 4 eva and always

Edgar Allan Poe!!!!!!

Edgar allan poe and some of my friends =P

P. L. Deshpande
Palash Sen
Ajitabh Bachchan
A. R. Rehman

jhon keats.
william wordsworth

I can only think of three at the moment:
JRR Tolkien
Seamus Heany
William Shakespeare

Ohhh....

Dorothy something... she wrote that AWESOME poem RESUME that few people my age have heard about. OHHHH

DOROTHY PARKER that's her name.
She has a short but awesome poem called RESUME... i reccomend that you check it out!