Poetry Connection

8,657 poems196 poets · 750 BC to todaySince 2003

An atlas of poetry

Great poems from every corner of the world.

Homer and Li Po, Bashō and Akhmatova, Burns and Neruda. Every poem on its own page, set as the poet wrote it or as it was translated.

All 196 poets, by year of birth

Each dot is a poet. The left of the scale is compressed.

750 BC7001400150016001700180019002000Homer, c. 750 BCOvid, 43 BC–AD 17Wang Wei, 699–761Li Po, 701–762Dante Alighieri, 1265–1321Geoffrey Chaucer, 1343–1400Francois Villon, 1431–1463Edmund Spenser, 1552–1599Sir Walter Raleigh, 1554–1618Sir Philip Sidney, 1554–1586Michael Drayton, 1563–1631Christopher Marlowe, 1564–1593William Shakespeare, 1564–1616John Donne, 1572–1631Ben Jonson, 1572–1637John Fletcher, 1579–1625William Drummond, 1585–1649Robert Herrick, 1591–1674George Herbert, 1593–1633Thomas Carew, 1595–1640John Milton, 1608–1674Richard Crashaw, 1613–1649Richard Lovelace, 1617–1657Abraham Cowley, 1618–1667Andrew Marvell, 1621–1678John Dryden, 1631–1700Katherine Philips, 1631–1664Thomas Flatman, 1637–1688Matsuo Basho, 1644–1694John Wilmot, 1647–1680Matthew Prior, 1664–1721Jonathan Swift, 1667–1745Alexander Pope, 1688–1744Yosa Buson, 1716–1784Thomas Gray, 1716–1771William Collins, 1721–1759Christopher Smart, 1722–1771Joseph Warton, 1722–1800Thomas Warton, 1728–1790Oliver Goldsmith, 1730–1774William Cowper, 1731–1800Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749–1832William Blake, 1757–1827Robert Burns, 1759–1796William Lisle Bowles, 1762–1850Kobayashi Issa, 1763–1828William Wordsworth, 1770–1850Samuel Coleridge, 1772–1834Ho Xuan Huong, 1772–1822Walter Savage Landor, 1775–1864James Henry Leigh Hunt, 1784–1859Lord Byron, 1788–1824Joseph Freiherr Von Eichendorff, 1788–1857Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792–1822John Clare, 1793–1864John Keats, 1795–1821William Barnes, 1801–1886Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1806–1861Edward Fitzgerald, 1809–1883Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1809–1892Robert Browning, 1812–1889Edward Lear, 1812–1888Charlotte Bronte, 1816–1855Emily Bronte, 1818–1848Arthur Hugh Clough, 1819–1861Charles Baudelaire, 1821–1867Matthew Arnold, 1822–1888T. E. Brown, 1830–1897Christina Rossetti, 1830–1894Lewis Carroll, 1832–1898Algernon Charles Swinburne, 1837–1909Thomas Hardy, 1840–1928Stephane Mallarme, 1842–1898Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1844–1889William Ernest Henley, 1849–1903Oscar Wilde, 1854–1900A.E. Housman, 1859–1936Sir Henry Newbolt, 1862–1938Constantine P. Cavafy, 1863–1933Andrew Barton Paterson, 1864–1941Rudyard Kipling, 1865–1936William Butler Yeats, 1865–1939Ernest Dowson, 1867–1900Henry Lawson, 1867–1922George William Russell, 1867–1935Hilaire Belloc, 1870–1953Lola Ridge, 1873–1941G.K. Chesterton, 1874–1936Robert William Service, 1874–1958Rainer Maria Rilke, 1875–1926Hermann Hesse, 1877–1962John Masefield, 1878–1967Guillaume Apollinaire, 1880–1918Alfred Noyes, 1880–1958A.A. Milne, 1882–1956D.H. Lawrence, 1885–1930Hans Arp, 1886–1966Siegfried Sassoon, 1886–1967Rupert Brooke, 1887–1915Marianne Moore, 1887–1972Dame Edith Sitwell, 1887–1964Georg Trakl, 1887–1914Fernando Pessoa, 1888–1935Anna Akhmatova, 1889–1966Jean Cocteau, 1889–1963Gabriela Mistral, 1889–1957Pierre Reverdy, 1889–1960Isaac Rosenberg, 1890–1918Osip Mandelstam, 1891–1938Vita Sackville-West, 1892–1962Wilfred Owen, 1893–1918Jiri Mordecai Langer, 1894–1943Robert Graves, 1895–1985Charles Sorley, 1895–1915Andre Breton, 1896–1966Austin Clarke, 1896–1974Bertolt Brecht, 1898–1956Federico Garcia Lorca, 1898–1936Jorge Luis Borges, 1899–1986Nazim Hikmet, 1901–1963Stevie Smith, 1902–1971A.S.J. Tessimond, 1902–1962Peter Huchel, 1903–1981Patrick Kavanagh, 1904–1967Pablo Neruda, 1904–1973John Betjeman, 1906–1984W. H. Auden, 1907–1973Louis MacNeice, 1907–1963Theodore Roethke, 1908–1963Anna Swir, 1909–1984Elizabeth Bishop, 1911–1979Czeslaw Milosz, 1911–2004Elizabeth Smart, 1913–1986R.S. Thomas, 1913–2000Octavio Paz, 1914–1998Dylan Thomas, 1914–1953Thomas Blackburn, 1916–1977Roald Dahl, 1916–1990P.K. Page, 1916–2010Paul Celan, 1920–1970Andree Chedid, 1920–2011Keith Douglas, 1920–1944Edwin Morgan, 1920–2010Tadeusz Rozewicz, 1921–2014Kingsley Amis, 1922–1995Philip Larkin, 1922–1985Vasko Popa, 1922–1991Vernon Scannell, 1922–2007Yves Bonnefoy, 1923–2016Nizar Qabbani, 1923–1998Wislawa Szymborska, 1923–2012Yehuda Amichai, 1924–2000Edgar Bowers, 1924–2000Lisel Mueller, 1924–2020Sonja Akesson, 1926–1977A.R. Ammons, 1926–2001Ingeborg Bachmann, 1926–1973Elizabeth Jennings, 1926–2001Edwin Brock, 1927–1997James Wright, 1927–1980Thom Gunn, 1929–2004Ted Hughes, 1930–1998Harold Pinter, 1930–2008Derek Walcott, 1930–2017Geoffrey Hill, 1932–2016Rafael Guillen, 1933–2023Alden Nowlan, 1933–1983Leonard Cohen, 1934–2016Mark Strand, 1934–2014Mary Oliver, 1935–2019Tony Harrison, 1937–2025Les Murray, 1938–2019Margaret Atwood, born 1939Seamus Heaney, 1939–2013Jon Anderson, 1940–2007Joseph Brodsky, 1940–1996Mahmoud Darwish, 1941–2008Eamon Grennan, born 1941Hugo Williams, born 1942Michael Ondaatje, born 1943Eavan Boland, 1944–2020Craig Raine, born 1944Henrik Nordbrandt, 1945–2023Regina Derieva, 1949–2013Paul Muldoon, born 1951Helen Dunmore, 1952–2017Christianne Balk, born 1953George Bradley, born 1953Michael Donaghy, 1954–2004John Burnside, 1955–2024Carol Ann Duffy, born 1955Erin Moure, born 1955Peter Cherches, born 1956Andrew Crumey, born 1961Don Paterson, born 1963Roddy Lumsden, 1966–2020HomerLi PoDanteShakespeareBashōNeruda

Poem of the day ·

Going Blind

by Rainer Maria Rilke, 1875–1926

She sat just like the others at the table.
But on second glance, she seemed to hold her cup
a little differently as she picked it up.
She smiled once. It was almost painful.

And when they finished and it was time to stand
and slowly, as chance selected them, they left
and moved through many rooms (they talked and laughed),
I saw her. She was moving far behind

Read the whole poem

In translation

Short poems from far away

  • Nizar QabbaniArabic · 1923–1998
    Translated by B. Frangieh And C. Brown

    My Lover Asks Me

    My lover asks me:
    "What is the difference between me and the sky?"
    The difference, my love,
    Is that when you laugh,
    I forget about the sky.

  • Johann Wolfgang von GoetheGerman · 1749–1832
    Translated by Edgar Alfred Bowring

    RULES FOR MONARCHS

    IF men are never their thoughts to employ,
    Take care to provide them a life full of joy;
    But if to some profit and use thou wouldst bend them,
    Take care to shear them, and then defend them.

                                    1815.*

  • Matsuo BashoJapanese · 1644–1694
    Translated by Robert Hass

    Midfield

    Midfield,
    attached to nothing,
    the skylark singing.

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