Profound Poets

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Which poets do you think have had the most profound effect on our society?
I got this idea because a teacher was recently critisized in an LA highschool for teaching about the poetry of Tupac Shukar rather than teaching about one of the more prominent poets such as Shakespeare.

[ January 25, 2003, 09:12: Message edited by: Elios ]

 

ROTFL

Well, more like ROTFCrying.
Poets who have a profound affect upon our society?
The poetic art form is even less a part of culture (here in the US anyway) than classical music. I pity the poets of today except for the fact their art form is not dependent upon an audience to be completely whole. Whereas mine is in many ways.

My personal favorite poet is Rainer Rilke; He has had a profound effect upon my life.

Bob Dylan and Alan Ginsberg come to mind, they were the voices for an entire generation and then some.

 

I like Jim Morrison.Also Edgar Allen Poe. If you count philsophie as poetry, maybe then Plato, Socreates, Leeming. Homer, and that guy who wrote Faust.

 

"and that guy that wrote faust"

OUCH!

that guy was Goethe, one of german's most influential writers!

but to get back on topic. A poet who can make you think about life is an important poet, but sometimes a poet long dead can still make you think about our modern world, which I find truly impressive. A few nominees:

Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon (both were soldiers in WW1)

Bob Dylan

Sylvia Plath

and the master of all:
William Shakespeare!

 

I certainly wish that poets did have a more visible and profound impact on our society as they once did - and no, I do not count musicians as poets, unless they publish poetry that is not set to music. That is not to say that I do not believe that their lyrical work is important or profound, I just tend to separate the two because of the instrumental part of music (which I believe is just as important as the lyrics, and therefore separates it as an art form - still to be appreciated, but not in the same genre!)

That being said, my poets are...

T.S. Eliot

W.B. Yeats

Dylan Thomas

Seamus Heaney

John Ciardi

 

I didn't think this topic was about favorite poets...

I could list many if it were

 

This is most interesting. I love Tupac's music, but that's all it is, it's music. Granted, the lyrics that he wrote were impactful, but sonnets they were not. I mean, they probably won't be something that we're talking about like 50 years after his death, and if they are, then, we must be living in a boring society by then.

I think the main appeal of his music is the urban truthfulness to it, really. It has no limericks, no little metaphors and whatnot. It's blunt, to the point of repulsiveness, but it was the truth, his truth. I suppose when you do compare many aspects of poetry and Tupac's lyrics, you could say that it was poetry, to an extent. But it's safe to say that his lyrics won't really be quoted in a Union of the State Address by some president.

To round this up, I don't think that the teacher should've been critized, because that's a good topic for debate. Like, how is Tupac's music comparable to Shakespeare? Oh yeah, I can see the wheels turning now.

 

With all respect to Tupac (even though I don't like him), he can't be considered a poet. A critic of society, maybe. A poet, no. Something is lacking in his lyrics that is a fundamental element of the definition of poetry. Also, I believe there's no one thing that can influence society so largely; my personal favorite poets would have to be T.S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath, and E.E. Cummings. Shakespeare is influential if anybody is. Now if we're talking about societally influential literature, how about George Orwell's 1984? Also, in the vein of philosophy, there's the Greek ancients such as Plato (no, I'm not saying this out of national pride), and of course the newer ones such as Kant. I like Sartre, but he's not quite one of the "greats".