Latest additions: Medbh McGuckian
Most divisive: Anne Brontë
Over 900 Ranker voters have come together to rank this list of The Top Women Poets of All Time
Who are the best female poets? This list includes great female poets such as Maya Angelou, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sylvia Plath, and Emily Dickinson. The women on this list have all changed poetry in their own way and left their mark on the genre. Women have been writing poetry through many eras and generations, but the poets on this list are the best.
Written works have the ability to make us feel. They make us want to believe, be inspired, and live vicariously through the stories on the page. Whether short or long form, poetry is often illusory, and full of rich imagery or hidden meaning. It is these elements which provoke readers to dig deeper. The best poems and poets are read throughout the ages. They are passed from generation to generation and taught throughout schools to young students.
Poets and their poetry have the ability to take readers places and into worlds never imagined. Poets can often be tortured souls or great thinkers who allow readers a new view on the world. These greatest women poets provide the kind of emotional connection to the written word that few can.
Vote up the best woman poets on the list below.
- 1The complete poems, The letters, Acts of Light: The World of Emily Dickinson
- 2Sappho, the poems and fragments, Woman from child (Sappho)
- 3The Bell Jar, Ariel, The Collected Poems
- 4Anna Akhmatova, Selected Poems, Chetki
- 5I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Sister, Sister
- 6Fatal interview, The murder of Lidice, The harp-weaver and other poems
- 7Verwandlungen / Transformations, All My Pretty Ones, Live or Die
- 8Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose, and Letters
- 9What Is Pink?, The Skylark, From Queens' Gardens
- 10Sonnets from the Portuguese, Poems and Letters, New Poems by Robert Browning and elizabeth Barrett Browning
- 11Long Life: Essays And Other Writings, Why I Wake Early: New Poems, White Pine: Poems and Prose Poems
- 12The Selected Letters of Marianne Moore, Homage to Henry James, Tell me
- 13Averno, The Wild Iris, The Seven Ages
- 14Wuthering Heights, Gondal poems, Poems by CurrerHer poetry is better than her sisters'.
- 15View with a Grain of Sand, Non-required Reading, That's Why We Are Alive
- 16The Dead and the Living, The Unswept Room, Selected poems
- 17Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972, An Atlas of the Difficult World, Midnight Salvage: Poems 1995-1998
- 18The Cancer Journals, The Marvelous Arithmetic of Distance: Poems 1987-1992, Undersong: Chosen Poems Old and New
- 19Asphodel, Her, Red Roses for Bronze
- 20Collection of serials with contributions by or articles about Denise Levertov, Seth Thomas, Breathing the Water
- 21Izbrannai͡a︡ proza v dvukh tomakh, Za vsekh-protivu vsekh!, The Poem of the End
- 22Lagar II, Selected prose and prose-poems, Producción de Gabriela Mistral de 1912 a 1918
- 23The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, The Making of Americans, Three Lives
- 24In the Mecca; Poems, Annie Allen
- 25Rosa, The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni, Cotton candy on a rainy day
- 26Poems of Phillis Wheatley, The collected works of Phillis Wheatley, Poems on Various Subjects
- 27Slave moth, Tale of a sky-blue dress, Last Chance for the Tarzan Holler
- 28Poesía, teatro y prosa, Los empeños de una casa =
- 29The Garden Party, Something Childish But Very Natural, Prelude
- 30Killing Floor, Cruelty, Dread
- 31Helen of Troy and Other Poems, Love Songs, Flame and Shadow
- 32Saboteur, A Star Is Born, A Star Is Born
- 33Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre
- 34Quark/2, Quark/1, Quark/3
- 35Good news about the earth, Good Woman: Poems and A Memoir, 1969-1980
- 36Like something flying backwards, Tremble, Cooling time
- 37Angria, The wedding dress, (Sic)
- 38The novels of Elinor Wylie, The Venetian Glass Nephew, The orphan angel
- 39Six French poets, Ballads for sale, A critical fable
- 40The Color Purple, Possessing the Secret of Joy, The Temple of My Familiar
- 41Break the Glass, Home, deep
- 42The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Agnes Grey, Best Poems of the Brontë Sisters
- 43Die Hörspiele, Das Buch Franza, Three paths to the lake
- 44Versed, Made to seem, Complete Early Poems
- 45The Handmaid's Tale, The Blind Assassin, Alias GraceShe's written a very significant body of excellent poetry.
46Laura Riding
The Failure of Poetry, The Promise of Language, Rational meaning- 48Dark summer, Collected Poems, 1923-1953
- 49The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, Early New England Meditative Poetry, works of Anne Bradstreet in prose and verse
- 50
Louise Labé
Les sonnets. The sonnets, Sonnets, Œuvres poétiques - 51The House Is Black, The Captive, Another Birth
- 52
Hedwig Gorski
- 53Overheard on a Saltmarsh, Queen Munch and Queen Nibble, Meeting Midnight
- 54The Gaze, The Flea Palace, The Happiness of Blond People
- 55Beirut '75, Zamn AL Hob Al Akhr, Sofart Inzar Dakhel Raasy
- 56The Piano Teacher, Malina, Greed
- 57Object lessons, Outside History, After Every War
- 58From the oak to the olive, The Hermaphrodite, Margaret Fuller (Marchesa Ossoli)
- 59City of Darkness, City of Light, Woman on the Edge of Time
- 60
Edith Södergran
Som en eld över askan, Kohtaamisia, Elämäni - 61Felt, Palladium, Sensual Math
- 62Memory in the flesh, Chaos of the Senses, nessyane.com
- 63Stained Glass: Poems, Fables of the self, Each leaf shines separate
- 64
Petya Dubarova
Lyastovitsa. Stihove i Razkazi, Az i Moreto - 65
Ono no Komachi
- 66
Emma Lazarus
Alide, The New Colossus, A day in Surrey with William Morris - 68Selected poetry of Delmira Agustini
- 69
Desanka Maksimović
Trazim pomilovanje, Nemam vise vremena, Ti medjutim stojis na velikoj reci - 70Mingling souls upon paper, From Gloucester to Philadelphia in 1790, Selected writings of Judith Sargent Murray
- 71
Nadia Anjuman
- 72
Mercy Otis Warren
History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution - 73
Julie Hill Alger
- 74
Amalia Von Helvig
- 75
Medbh McGuckian
- 76
Laetitia Pilkington
Memoirs of Mrs. Letitia Pilkington, 1712-1750 - 77
Lisa Zaran
- 78
Fleda Brown
The women who loved Elvis all their lives, The Eleusinian mysteries ms : poems, Do not peel the birches - 79
Sandra McPherson
Beauty in use, The god of indeterminacy, Expectation Days
