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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.
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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
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