Top 10 Poets of the 21st Century

Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson, was a Pulitzer Prize-winning African American poet. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 8 1928 and died in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on May 28, 2014. Angelou was also a dancer, an actress and a singer.

Spike Milligan is an Irish comedian writer musician poet playwright soldier and actor. He was born an 'Army Brat', the son of an Irish Captain in the British Raj in India. He lived most of his life in England and served in the British Army, in the Royal Artillery during World War II.

Billy Collins is an American poet who served two terms as the 44th Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001–2003. He's arguably the greatest poet of the 21st century.

Alice Walker is an American poet, activist, author and feminist. She is one of the most celebrated in modern history. Her most famous work, The Color Purple, won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and it remains one of the bestselling books in the United States.

Sandra Cisneros, born in Chicago, Illinois on December 21, 1954, is a United States author and poet best known for her novel The House on Mango Street. She is also the author of Caramelo, published by Knopf in 2002. Much of her writing is influenced by her Mexican-American heritage. She the only daughter in a Mexican-American family of seven children.

Nikki Giovanni is one of the best-known African-American poets who reached prominence during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Pam Ayres is an English poet, comedian, songwriter and presenter of radio and television programmes. Her 1975 appearance on the television talent show Opportunity Knocks led to a variety of appearances on TV and radio shows, a one-woman touring stage show and performing before the Queen .

Carol Ann Duffy is a British poet and playwright born in Glasgow, Scotland. Duffy is the first female and first Scottish Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom.

Roger McGough is an English poet, comedian, performance poet, broadcaster, children's author and playwright. He was Born on November 9, 1937 in Litherland, United Kingdom and educated at St Mary's College, Crosby, and University of Hull.

An American novelist, essayist, poet, professor, cultural critic and farmer.. American man of letters academic cultural and economic critic and farmer