Poet names male

This is an alphabetical list of internationally notable poets.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

A

Ab–Ak

• Jonathan Aaron (born 1941), US poet
• Aarudhra (1925–1998), Indian Telugu poet, born Bhagavatula Sadasiva Sankara Sastry
• Chris Abani (born 1966), Nigerian poet
• Henry Abbey (1842–1911), US poet
• Eleanor Hallowell Abbott (1872–1958), US poet and fiction writer
• Siôn Abel (fl. 18th c.), Welsh balladeer
• Aria Aber (born 1991), Afghan poet and novelist, resides in the US, writes and publishes primarily in English
• Lascelles Abercrombie (1881–1938), English poet and literary critic
• Arthur Talmage Abernethy (1872–1956), US journalist, minister, scholar; first North Carolina Poet Laureate
• Abu Sa'id Abu'l-Khayr (967–1049), Persian poet
• Sam Abrams (born 1935), US poet, editor and critic
• Seth Abramson (born 1976), US poet
• Kosta Abrašević (1879–1898), Serbian poet
• Dannie Abse (1923–2014), Welsh poet in English
• Kathy Acker
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  10 Famous Poets Who Left an Indelible Mark on Literature

  Homer

  Birth and death date unknown

  Little is definitively known about this famous Greek poet who lived before the common era. Some even question whether the same person wrote both epics credited to Homer, The Iliad and The Odyssey. Some scholars believe he might have left hints about his own life through his descriptions of the blind minstrel character Demodokos in The Odyssey.

  Despite these uncertainties, the two epics about the fall of Troy and subsequent events have influenced writers throughout history like J.R.R. Tolkien and James Joyce. The use of vivid similes and metaphors as well as the in media res narrative structure—beginning in the middle of the plot and flashing back to past events—are characteristics of Homer’s writings.

  Learn More About Homer

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  1803-1882
  

  Originally ordained in the Unitarian Church, Emerson resigned from the clergy after three years. He took up writing and lecturing instead, becoming a founding figure of the Transcendentalism movement in New En

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  Walt Whitman

  Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, in West Hills, on Long Island, New York. He was the second son of Walter Whitman, a house-builder, and Louisa Van Velsor. In the 1820s and 1830s, the family, which consisted of nine children, lived in Long Island and Brooklyn, where Whitman attended the Brooklyn public schools.

  At the age of twelve, Whitman began to learn the printer’s trade and fell in love with the written word. Largely self-taught, he read voraciously, becoming acquainted with the works of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and the Bible.

  Whitman worked as a printer in New York City until a devastating fire in the printing district demolished the industry. In 1836, at the age of seventeen, he began his career as teacher in the one-room schoolhouses of Long Island. He continued to teach until 1841, when he turned to journalism as a full-time career. He founded a weekly newspaper, The Long-Islander, and later edited a number of Brooklyn and New York papers, including the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. In 1848, Whitman left the Brooklyn Daily Eagle to b