Skip to main content

Eyewear's Top Five Poets Coming Soon

Eyewear has covered any number of poetry stories over the past five years.  In no order, here are the Sixty poets, in longlist, young and old, who, for literary, and extra-literary, reasons, have made the largest impact on the world of English-language poetry these past five years, or promise to do so in the next five, for better and verse, as this blog has seen it; and yes, there are many other fine and invaluable poets not listed - many have been featured here at Eyewear - this is not a definitive, canonical list of "The Best" - but merely of those that have - for whatever reason - seemed to set my part of the blogosphere buzzing the most:

  1. Tom Chivers
  2. Peter Hughes
  3. Michelle Leggot
  4. John Steffler
  5. CK Stead
  6. Clare Pollard
  7. Geoffrey Hill
  8. Anne Carson
  9. Fiona Sampson
  10. Ruth Padel
  11. Charles Bernstein
  12. Paul Muldoon
  13. Seamus Heaney
  14. Derek Walcott
  15. Giles Goodland
  16. Peter Porter
  17. Don Paterson
  18. Carol Ann Duffy
  19. David Lehman
  20. Roddy Lumsden
  21. James Byrne
  22. Nathan Hamilton
  23. Emily Berry
  24. Kevin Higgins
  25. Leonard Cohen
  26. WS Merwin
  27. Ted Kooser
  28. Rae Armantrout
  29. PK Page
  30. John Glenday
  31. Jen Hadfield
  32. CD Wright
  33. AF Moritz
  34. Kay Ryan
  35. Frederick Seidel
  36. Paul Farley
  37. Chris Emery
  38. John Ashbery
  39. Kamau Braithwaite
  40. Evan P. Jones
  41. Simon Armitage
  42. Andrew Motion
  43. David McGimpsey
  44. Robert Bringhurst
  45. Sina Queyras
  46. Lisa Robertson
  47. Carmine Starnino
  48. Christian Bok
  49. Edwin Morgan
  50. Gwyneth Lewis
  51. Christopher Reid
  52. Philip Gross
  53. Kathryn Maris
  54. Jo Shapcott
  55. Siobhan Campbell
  56. Luke Kennard
  57. Jack Underwood
  58. John Tranter
  59. Jason Camlot
  60. Sinead Morrissey
Eyewear will announce the top five end of week.
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
You forgot to include yourself Todd. You've done so much for yourself and poetry in the last five years. You broght a voice to thwe anti-war sentiment, you ran and continue to run a series of fantastic readings and mentor young and old poets alike. You gave a voice to the disposessed when they needed one and puppies and kittens are naturally drawn to your incredibly warm and loving mind, always willing to do a person a favor, and the world needs to know about this Swift. Stop hiding your light under a bushel. You're too shy and never put yourself forward.

Seamus
Tue Jul 06, 04:46:00 pm 2010
EYEWEAR said…
Gee, thanks Seamus - awfully kind of you. I do love kittens and puppies. And my shyness has held me back. But in future I will try harder. But this poetry world is so full of nasty begrudgers that use the net to lash out at strangers, so no wonder I remain so studiously neutral, and modest. What do you do, may I ask, to avoid complacent cynics?
Tue Jul 06, 05:31:00 pm 2010
Rethabile said…
Walcott, Heaney. Oh, and Brathwaite. Merwin. And Ashbery. That would be my pick. But on another day I'd probably pick differently.
Tue Jul 06, 05:39:00 pm 2010
Blandine L. said…
What about Paul Stubbs? Or is he already too far ahead ?
Wed Jul 07, 11:51:00 pm 2010
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se....
3 comments
Read more

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".
1 comment
Read more

THE SWIFT REPORT 2023

I am writing this post without much enthusiasm, but with a sense of duty. This blog will be 20 years old soon, and though I rarely post here anymore, I owe it some attention. Of course in 2023, "Swift" now means one thing only, Taylor Swift, the billionaire musician. Gone are the days when I was asked if I was related to Jonathan Swift. The pre-eminent cultural Swift is now alive and TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR. There is no point in belabouring the obvious with delay: 2023 was a low-point in the low annals of human history - war, invasion, murder, in too many nations. Hate, division, the collapse of what truth is, exacerbated by advances in AI that may or may not prove apocalyptic, while global warming still seems to threaten the near-future safety of humanity. It's been deeply depressing. The world lost some wonderful poets, actors, musicians, and writers this year, as it often does. Two people I knew and admired greatly, Ian Ferrier and Kevin Higgins, poets and organise...
1 comment
Read more