Famous Poets

By tguerin
  • William Shakespeare
    Apr 23, 1564

    William Shakespeare

    Shakespeare died April 26, 1616. He was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson

    Ralph Waldo Emerson

    Emerson passed on April 27, 1882. He was an American lecturer, essayist, and poet, best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century.
  • Edgar Allan Poe

    Edgar Allan Poe

    Edgar Allan Poe died October 7, 1849. He was a part of the American Romantic Movement and is famous for his mysteries, short stories, and introduction to early science fiction.
  • Henry David Thoreau

    Henry David Thoreau

    Thoreau died May 6, 1862. He was an American author, poet, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and philosopher. His most famous work was his book "Walden".
  • Emily Dickinson

    Emily Dickinson

    Dickinson died May 15, 1886.Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation. Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring topics in letters to her friends.
  • Langston Hughes

    Langston Hughes

    Hughes passed on May 22, 1967. He was an American novelist, playwright, short story writer, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best-known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance. He famously wrote about the Harlem Renaissance, saying that "Harlem was in vogue".
  • Maya Angelou

    Maya Angelou

    Angelou is an American autobiographer and poet who has been called "America's most visible black female autobiographer" by scholar Joanne M. Braxton. She is best known for her series of six autobiographical volumes, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences.
  • Shel Silverstein

    Shel Silverstein

    Shel Silverstein died May 10, 1999. He was an author, short story writer, poet, cartoonist, song writer, and playwright. On of his most famous books was "Where the Sidewalk Ends".
  • Jack Prelutsky

    Jack Prelutsky

    Prelutsky has written more than 50 poetry collections, and has also compiled numerous children's anthologies comprising poems of others.