NOTE: I have edited and expanded this to 175 poets, after receiving some helpful feedback and also making notes after insomnia. If you are, fortunately for everyone, alive today, and you write and publish poetry, you are a 21st century poet. Other poets, less lucky, have died in the last 100 years or so, but their great contribution to poetry continues. Poems, of all the literary art forms, are perhaps the most generous gifts, because compared to the energy and effort involved in their creation, the material returns are the least - so they stand as bequests to eternity, or at least, posterity. Even a weak, or minor, poet may create a poem or three that are wonderful, moving, crafty, cunning, potent, convincing, wise, helpful, funny or delightful - but below is a list of 175 poets, who have written in the English language primarily, who published most of their poetry in the 20th century, and are no longer with us, who gave us whole collections that were and are vital and ...
POETRY, POLITICS, PROVOCATION AND POPULAR CULTURE SINCE 2005 - 20 YEARS AND over 10 million visits - British Library-archived