The best biographies of poets compiled in this list represent a range of eras, poetic movements, and poets as different from each other as can be. But they do all have one thing in common: these poets rocked the world of poetry, and literature at large, forever changing how we think about verse. This list includes not just biographies of English poets, but also biographies of famous poets from other places on the globe. In this list of literary biographies, you’ll learn more about the lives of literature’s greatest poets in some of the best author biographies around. And now on to the books!
But first, if you like this article about poetry, definitely check out this blog’s guide to “Learn Poetry Writing with the 17 Best Books on Writing Poetry.”
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And now for the 10 best biographies of poets!
Being Shelley: The Poet’s Search for Himself by Ann Wroe
If you’re looking for famous English poetry biographies, this one is a good fit. Percy Bysshe Shelley died young, leaving behind his wife, Mary Shelley, who later went on to write the extraordinarily radical Frankenstein. But though he lived a short life, Shelley lived a full one, and it’s that life we learn about in Ann Wroe’s Being Shelley: The Poet’s Search for Himself. What distinguishes this book from other biographies of Shelley is Wroe’s skilled ability to bring to life Shelley’s sense of purpose when it came to his writing. In that way, Being Shelley portrays the poet’s existential quest to understand himself as an artist and feed his ambitious desire to be a poet in every sense of the identity. This biography offers a deep dive into the inner life of one of the world’s greatest poets.
How to read it: Purchase Being Shelley on Amazon
The Bughouse: The Poetry, Politics, and Madness of Ezra Pound by Daniel Swift
American poet Ezra Pound is best remembered for his poetry, but in The Bughouse: The Poetry, Politics, and Madness of Ezra Pound, Daniel Swift explores the poet’s relationship to madness. This book is definitely among the best author biographies anywhere. Doomed to stand trial for producing fascist broadcasts in Italy during the Second World Wide, instead Pound was found to be insane and locked up in St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., a mental institution. It’s there that Pound’s prominent circle of friends came to call, including T. S. Eliot, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, and William Carlos Williams. The result is a biography not just of Pound but the entire Modernist movement’s leading artists, making a key contribution to literary biographies.
How to read it: Purchase The Bughouse on Amazon
Heav’nly Tidings From the Afric Muse: The Grace and Genius of Phillis Wheatley by Richard Kigel
This book is a compelling biography of Phillis Wheatley, whom biographer Richard Kigel has deemed the “true Poet Laureate of the American Revolution.” Kigel’s biography contextualizesWheatley’s poetry within the era she lived when she managed to find freedom after being a slave. What happens next is Wheatley’s feverishly paced writing career, which Kigel situates within the context of African American literature and women’s literature of the time. What we’re left with is deft criticism and strong praise of Wheatley’s work as informed by her remarkable life in this superb book, certainly one of the best author biographies.
How to read it: Purchase Heav’nly Tidings from the Afric Muse on Amazon
Keats: A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph by Lucasta Miller
John Keats is one of my favorite poets, and this is one of the best biographies of poets around. We’ve already had an exceptional biographical movie of Keats (Bright Star), so why do we need yet another biography of Keats? Well, it turns out we can stand to have one more Keats biography, and this one is the mic drop of them all; in Lucasta Miller’s Keats: A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph, Keats’ life is organized around nine of his poems and one epitaph. Miller excavates Keats’ life to see how it influenced some of his most incredible poems. What this biography does so well is braid Keats’ life with Keats’ creativity, showing how one interacted with the other in this tour-de-force of a book that’s definitely one of the best biographies of English poets.
How to read it: Purchase Keats: A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph on Amazon
Neruda: The Biography of a Poet by Mark Eisner
This biography of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda—a finalist for the PEN/Bograd Weld Prize for Biography—finally reveals this groundbreaking poet’s fascinating life, which ranks among the best literary biographies. Author Mark Eisner has skillfully woven together several strands of Neruda’s life, including his personal history; Latin American culture, history, and politics; and his career as a poet. Eisner has crafted an authoritative yet extremely accessible biography of this influential poet.
How to read it: Purchase Neruda: The Biography of a Poet on Amazon
Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clark
A Pulitzer Prize finalist, Red Comet is an exceptional biography of Sylvia Plath and definitely counts as one of the best biographies of poets. It might seem hard to believe that there’s anything left to say of Plath, given that she has inspired multiple biographies before Red Comet. Yet this one stands out because of its unique approach to put Plath’s work front and center. Biographer Heather Clark here expands on what we thought we knew about Plath, sifting through previously unavailable source materials and viewing Plath’s life not for the sole purpose of tragedy porn, which has surrounded much of Plath’s life since she took her life in 1963 at age 30. Instead, Clark has crafted perhaps the first fully realized biography of this consequential poet whose short life, her extraordinary writing, and her significant legacy shattered the world. Sitting at close to 2,000 pages, Red Comet is the definitive biography of Sylvia Plath.
How to read it: Purchase Red Comet on Amazon
Robert Lowell, Setting the River on Fire: A Study of Genius, Mania, and Character by Kay Redfield Jameson
In this unique and creative biography, psychologist Kay Redfield Jameson sifts through the mind of renowned Confessional poet Robert Lowell. As a writer who shares Lowell’s diagnosis of bipolar disorder, Jameson analyzes Lowell’s life through a unique perspective. Jameson, whose memoir Touched with Fire I recommended in this blog’s article on “The 20 Best Books about Bipolar Disorder,” finds connections between Lowell’s life-long battle with mental illness and the astonishing poetry he penned both during times of suffering and times of remission. What we’re left with is a thorough understanding of how Lowell’s moods impacted his writing and vice versa. Jameson has done a real service to Lowell in this book, for sure one of the best biographies of poets.
How to read it: Purchase Robert Lowell, Setting the River on Fire on Amazon
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
Historian Nancy Milford here trains her gaze on a formidable heroine: the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. In this biography, Milford distills the woman from the myth, creating a thorough yet engaging biography of the poet who would revolutionize her field and go on to become the first woman ever to win the Pulitzer Prize. In Savage Beauty, Millay comes alive like never before.
How to read it: Purchase Savage Beauty on Amazon
These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson by Martha Ackmann
American poet Emily Dickinson penned well over 1,500 poems, but she was seen in her lifetime as was seemingly “quiet.” She stayed inside mostly and kept to her home, yet she lived an extremely intellectual and creative life that forever changed poetry. In These Fevered Days, Martha Ackmann drills down deep to ten pivotal days in Dickinson’s life, unearthing these consequential moments that helped shape Dickinson into the woman and poet she was. If you’re someone who struggles with conventional biographies, which, let’s be honest, can be both bloated and boring, this is the book for you with its inventive, engaging structure. Read it and see what makes These Fevered Days one of the best biographies of poets.
How to read it: Purchase These Fevered Days on Amazon
The Whole Harmonium: The Life of Wallace Stevens by Paul Mariani
Closing out our list of the best biographies of poets is The Whole Harmonium, in which biographer Paul Mariani takes poet Wallace Stevens as his subject. Mariani’s biography is unique because it seeks to find the connections between Stevens’ work as a poet and his self-confessed purpose to find and translate the sublime into art. See why Booklist wrote, in a starred review, that The Whole Harmonium is an “incandescent….redefining biography of a major poet whose reputation continues to ascend.”
