“In looking for poems and poets,” Mary Oliver once remarked, “don’t dwell on the boundaries of style, or time, or even of countries and centuries. Think of yourself rather as one member of a single, recognizable tribe … Expect to feel intimate with the distance voice.”

The following is a selection of renowned poets from various cultures (~200) – admittedly very partial and highly biased toward those poets better known in English literature. The list is arranged chronologically.

For convenience to get more information each poet’s name is linked to his or her biography at Wikipedia; however, we are not responsible for the contents of these linked websites although they provide good starting points for further reading and research.

Text Box: BC sages, Chinese, Indian, Greek, and Roman poets
Text Box: Mainly Sufi, Persian, Jewish, and Christian mystic poets
Text Box: Basho, Kabir, Shakespeare, and English Metaphysical & Augustan poets
Text Box: From Blake to Ibsen, mainly Romanticist, Transcendentalist, and Haiku poets
Text Box: Free-verse, Modernist, American, Beat Generation, and Asian poets; the spirit and adventure of poetry continues ...

A World of Poets

Text Box: Rumi Poetry Club
Text Box: Celebrating Inspirational Words & Perennial Wisdom

© 2010-2020 Rumi Poetry  Club. All rights reserved.

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”

    Wordsworth, 1800

 

The world is so great and rich, and life so full of variety, that you can never lack occasions for poems.”

     Goethe, 1823

 

The true poet is a friendly man. He takes to his arms even cold and inanimate things, and rejoices in his heart.”

      Longfellow, 1857

 

Poetry makes nothing happen: it survives

In the valley of its saying.”

     W.H. Auden, 1940