Poets

12 Famous American Poets

Edward Estlin Cummings is a well-known poet for how he wrote his poems. He wrote his poems in a very unusual way. He wrote poems with capital letters in the middle of words like the title of a poem called, "The little horse newlY". The "Y" is a capital letter. He also signed his poems with lower case letters in his name.

This is probably one of Emily Dickinson's most famous poems. Knowing how tiny her life was you would think she wouldn't have any "famous poems." Emily's style was what made her famous. She was a good observer. She wrote about tiny things you wouldn't ordinarily notice. She had an interesting point of view. Her devices were similes and metaphors. She tended to favor them a little bit more. In this poem, she used similes. Like " How public like a frog." What I like about this poem is pretty much the idea. The idea of this poem sounds like a poem to cheer you up when you feel all alone so that you could know someone else is there in the same situation as you to defeat that loneliness. I observed she almost always in her poems uses "I." instead of "he,she, or it ." My opinion of Emily's poems is that they are very soothing. What we can all remember about her poetry is her "tiny" style. Here is her story . . . . loneliness. I observed she almost always in her poems uses "I." instead of "he,she, or it ." My opinion of Emily's poems is that they are very soothing. What we can all remember about her poetry is her "tiny" style. Here is her story . . . .

Thomas Sterns Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on September 26, 1888. He was raised in a family that had distinguished Americans since colonial days. At 18 years of age, T.S. Eliot entered Harvard, after graduating he went abroad. Then he taught in a boys school briefly before spending eight years in Lloyds Bank in London.

Eugene Field was an unusual poet. He was one of the few poets who wrote only children's poetry. That is how he got his nickname, The Children's Poet. It all started September 2, 1850, at 634 South Broadway in Saint Louis. That's where and when Eugene Field was born. He had one brother named Roswell, who was one year younger than he, and a sister who died soon after her birth. He and his brother were very close, but very different. Eugene took after their mother, Francis, while Roswell took after their father. Eugene was afraid of the dark while his brother wasn't afraid of anything. Eugene hated studying while Roswell loved it. When the boys were six and five, their mother died. Mr. Field sent them to live with their cousin, Mary French, in Massachusetts until he could take care of them. While living on their cousin's farm, Eugene wrote his first poem . He was nine then, and the poem was about their cousin's dog, Fido. At the age of fifteen, Eugene was shipped off to a small private school in Massachusetts. There were only five boys in the school, and Eugene loved leading the boys in tricks against the master of the school.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is one of the most famous American poets. People love his poems because they rhyme and sound like songs. Henry was born on February 27, 1807 in Portland, Maine. He was the son of Stephen and Zilpah Longfellow, who was a descendant of John Alden of the Mayflower. Henry's father, Stephen, was a lawyer so Henry was born to a rich family. Henry was very bright and he began school at age three. By the time he was six he was the smartest boy in the school. He was very good at spelling and arithmetic. But Henry loved to write and eventually became very good at it. His Mother enjoyed reading to her young son; Don Quixote was one of Henry’s favorite books, along with Washington Irving's Sketch Book. Henry's father wanted him to become a lawyer but after Henry graduated from Bowdoin College in Maine at the age of 19 he wanted to become a professor. But Henry wanted to travel to Europe to study. He followed that dream, but later returned to Bowdoin to become a professor and librarian at age 22. Because of the influence of his travels, he inspired his students to appreciate the literature of Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Nordic, and Icelandic cultures.

Robert Frost was a great poet. Here is a brief summary of his life. Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874 in San Francisco, California. When Frost was two years old, his mother fled to Lawrence, Massachusetts, to get away from her husband, who was a drunkard. She stayed there until her second baby was born, Jeannie, Robert's sister. Then they went back to San Francisco on a train. A few years later, Robert's father died, so they took the body to Lawrence to be buried in the family cemetery. By the time he was 11, Robert Frost had crossed the U.S. three times.

Who was Langston Hughes? What did he do? Langston Hughes was a black poet who made black people who were sad, cheerful. He had a broken family and was partly raised by his grandmother. Still, he became one of the most famous African-American poets.

Ogden Nash is one of the few American humorous poets. He became very famous during his life for his funny work. His many poems are loved by both children and adults. I hope that after you read this you will like his poetry as much as I did.

Carl Sandburg was born in Galesburg, Illinois on January 6, 1878. He was the son of Swedish immigrants. He grew up in the fields of Illinois. After the age of thirteen, he dropped out of school and became a day laborer. His numerous odd jobs helped him gain experience as a writer and poet. He then served in Puerto Rico in the Spanish-American war. After the war, he practically forced himself through Lombard College, now known as Knox College. In 1908, he married Lilian Steichen and settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They had three children together. In 1913, he moved to Chicago, where he wrote his first famous poem. Some of the odd jobs he had then were novelist, journalist, children's author, and film critic. He toured the country, not just reading his poems, but also playing the guitar and singing folk songs.

"Do I look sick?" asked Robert Louis Stevenson to his worried wife, Mrs. Fanny Osbourne. He had had a stroke and soon died. It was Dec. 3, 1894 and he was at the young age of 44. His life was very unusual. His childhood was not at all like a typical child's life. He suffered a bad sickness of lung disease. He spent most of his childhood sick and in bed. He was not able to attend a regular school because of his sickness. Yet he was very bright and a gifted storyteller. He wrote many books and one book of poems called A Child's Garden of Verses. He wrote poems about simple child like things, such as their play, manners, sleeping, meals, and so on. Yet I think that since he never got to enjoy the regular life of a child he made them up and wrote them down as poems.

Walt Whitman is one of the world's most famous poets. What is memorable about his writing is that he usually doesn't rhyme, yet, he can still make a poem sound just as well. He became well skilled at writing when he was younger, and he wrote for newspapers. Walter lived with a family of eleven. He was involved with many democratic activities.