My background in poetry is very ill-formed. Having never studied literature to any great extent, most of my favorite poets have been discovered by accident or on the recommendation of others. My poet hero is Walt Whittman, and I will forever be in debt to Mrs. Donker for introducing us to each other. I enjoy the English Romantic poets: Keats, Shelly, and Byron, as well as Tenneyson, Scott and Spencer. But my love of poetry really took off with the modern (that's modern in literary terms, meaning anyone after the U.S. Civil War) poets. Here are some of my own poems. You may or may not like them. You may or may not understand them. That is fine. Read them, and let me know what you think. No poet is beyond criticism. By the way, the top ten list is not mine, but was gleaned off the net. The author gave persmission for it be posted on my web site.