Unless we’re talking about the ten most influential poets in English, I think we’re missing Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Catullus etc all of whom had a massive influence on European and American poetry.
Unless we’re talking about the ten most influential poets in English, I think we’re missing Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Catullus etc all of whom had a massive influence on European and American poetry. Then you have to include Petrarch, who was a profound influence on Medieval and Elizabethan poetry onwards, not least because he gave us the Petrarchan Sonnet. Dante would have to be in there too, and if we’re looking at modern poetry we’d need Baudelaire, and probably Rimbaud.