Score

Deleted the wasteland and other poems because it isn't a selected or collected volume. If a poet has a selected or collected volume add those instead. You're voting for poets here, not for specific volumes of poetry.

Removed leaves of grass.

It's interesting how different this is to the "best poetry books" list. Leaves of grass and howl are the top 2 books there, but whitman and ginsberg barely register on this list. Shows the distinction between voting for best books and best poets. PPL have heard of howl and leaves of grass because of their historical significance, but not many seem to care for the poetry so much...

Should the Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge not be removed? After all, it only represents a very small part of either poet's output...

Anyway, I'm really quite surprised at Yeats being at the top, though I suppose given how paradoxical and contradictory he was throughout his life there's going to be at least one poem in their collection for any kind of nutcase.

Peter wrote: "Should the Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge not be removed? After all, it only represents a very small part of either poet's output...

Anyway, I'm really quite surprised at Yeats being ..."

Well spotted. Deleted the lyrical ballads.

I though yeats was pretty good... i don't think paradox and contradiction necessarily bother ppl. Most probly don't notice it, i didnt.

Hah, I suppose Yeats's contradictory nature is really only going to be highlighted if you happen to study him or you're involved with Irish poetry/politics in some way... He's definitely one of the greats though. Perhaps the last great Romantic and certainly among the first Modernists too. Personally, I'll always prefer Keats and Shelley though.

Killthepopular wrote: "Removed leaves of grass.

That's fine, I guess. But it is worth knowing that Leaves of Grass (unlike Howl or the Waste Land) is basically Whitman's only book. Some poets do not have a proper "collected works." Virgil comes to mind. So does Shel Silverstein, who appears on this list three times. I suggest you leave his highest ranking book in place and delete the others.

I don't think Eugene Onegin (#90) or The Divine Comedy (#11) should be on this list...?

Dante is only really known for two works: Divine comedy and Vita Nuova. Vita Nuova is a short and comparatively obscure volume and the divine comedy is a compilation of three previously published works so I'm inclined to regard The Divine Comedy as being more or less the same as a collected works volume.

Deleted The Prophet seeing as we have the collected works of Gibran hanging round #50.

By God, why is this list so anglosphere oriented. Where are the great French, German, Norse poets in the top 10? The only ' foreign' poet in the top is Dante Alighieri and he is only tenth!