"Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world."                            — Percy Bysshe Shelley Poets.org currently features biographies of more than 500 poets, with new pages being added all the time. Sign up for the Poets.org Update to receive monthly e-mail updates, including news about the poets, poems, and features most recently added to Poets.org.
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	Newest Poets Added to Poets.org
	Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Juana was a voracious reader in her early childhood, hiding in the hacienda chapel to read her grandfather's books from the adjoining library. She composed her first poem when she was eight years old. Stéphane Mallarmé In the 1880s, Mallarmé was at the center of a group of French writers including Andre Gide, Paul Valéry and Marcel Proust that he referred to as "The Decadents." Thomas Merton Merton published nearly 50 books in his lifetime. Inspired by Gerard Manley Hopkins' conversion to Catholicism and the priesthood, Merton was baptized in 1938, and began studying the catechism of the Catholic church. Geoffrey Chaucer Now considered the "Father of English literature," Chaucer held several positions early in his life, serving as a noblewoman's page, a courtier, a diplomat, a civil servant, and a collector of scrap metal. Petrarch A celebrity throughout Europe, Petrarch travelled widely for pleasure and is sometimes called "the first tourist." Known for his work reviving interest in classical literature, Petrarch is also considered the "father of Humanism." Rachel Wetzsteon In a New York Times feature article about the poet, her work is described as "hard-edged yet sinuous, rich with feeling yet unsentimental." She recently passed away on December 25, 2009. Marie Howe Author of three collections of poetry, Howe is also the editor of an anthology of American writing from the AIDS pandemic. She lives in New York City and teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, New York University, and Columbia University. Leslie Scalapino Both as a poet and publisher, Scalapino is a renowned promoter of experimental verse, often working in collaboration with other poets. Despite ties to many language poets, she is both separate and vital to that school of thought. Philip Appleman Born in Indiana in 1926, Philip Appleman served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II and in the Merchant Marine Cadet Corps after the war. Kenneth Goldsmith A key figure in "conceptual poetry," Goldsmith describes his aesthetic as "a poetics of the moment, fusing the avant-garde impulses of the last century with the technologies of the present." Phillip Lopate A poet and essayist, as Lopate puts it: "Though I am known today mostly as an essayist, occasionally as a fiction writer, for about fifteen years I wrote poetry." Ira Sadoff Born in 1945 to Russian immigrants, Sadoff has published numerous books and served as poetry editor of The Antioch Review as well as co-founder of The Seneca Review.
	New & Improved
	New poems, photos, links, and more have been added to the profiles of Walt Whitman,Sherman Alexie, Deborah Digges, Saskia Hamilton, Ben Jonson, Keith Waldrop, James Dickey, Frank O'Hara, Constantine Cavafy,Rosanna Warren, Brigit Pegeen Kelly, Louise Glück, James Tate, Mahmoud Darwish, Marvin Bell, Derek Walcott, Alice Walker & Lucie Brock-Broido