A poet is a person who writes poetry. This is usually influenced by a cultural and intellectual tradition. Some consider the best poetry to be, to some extent, and universal, and to address issues common to all humanity; others are more absorbed by its particular, personal and ephemeral qualities.

In the English language, poets generally considered to be of the most influential and profound include Chaucer, Shakespeare, John Milton, William Blake, John Keats, Lord Byron, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Elizabeth Bishop and Sylvia Plath. American poet Walt Whitman was one of the first poets to write a kind of poetry now called free verse, though French poet Jules Laforgue was also writing in free verse around the same time as Whitman. Free verse differed from traditional verse because it was not bound by rhyme or meter. In the Western tradition, Homer, Sappho, Virgil, Dante, Luís de Camões, Fernando Pessoa and Goethe round out a basic list. In Chinese, Li Bai, Du Fu and other Tang dynasty poets produced some the oldest poetry in the world, which is still read today. Basho, Omar Khayyám, and Rumi complete one defensible canon.

•  • [ e] Lists of poets

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