Wordsworth has truly said that “poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions.” A poem is a beautiful daffodil blooming in the valley of heaven in the form of words. In reality, it is the beauty of the purest emotions of the heart diffused in vivid colors of joy, sadness, romance, passion, pain, happiness and love.

The history of poetry on the world platform has passed from different phases of its origin, series of typical thoughts, new ideas, new discoveries, revolution and then modern ideas and a new birth of thoughts in poetry. Literature in every language on earth has witnessed this phase of its existence and survival. Sometimes the period becomes too difficult for poetry to survive, restricting its development in its new form, yet sometimes the period proves to be a golden age and just as conducive to blooming the flowers of poetry in the that blooms in its fullness. American poetry has also originated from the same source, moving from its entire history to the modern musical era of the 21st century.

The roots of American poetry or American poetry go back to the 17th century when the colonial period prevailed in America. The first poets of this time were more or less influenced by British poetry and literature. However, there are 14 writers that we can consider to be early American poets. Ann Bradstreet (1612-1672) is one of the first female poets to write in English. Most of her works were based on religious and political themes, however, she also wrote poems about family, her love for her husband and her home. Most of his works remained unpublished until the 20th century. Edward Taylor (1645-1729) is another poet who wrote his poems based on the Puritan virtues in a metaphysical style. This Puritan ethic remained dominant in most of the works written during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Samuel Danforth was the first poet to write the first secular poetry. Phillis Wheatley, a slave girl, was one of the best known poets of her day whose poems were the distinctive American lyrical voice of the colonial period. His poetry themes revolved around religious and classical ideas. Philip Freneau (1752-1832) and Rebecca Hammond Lard (1772-1855) were other poets of this period.

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) was the leading independent American writer who wrote rhapsodic poems about the greatness of the prairies and forests. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, Edgar Allan Poe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry David Thoreau, James Russell Lowell, and Sidney Lanier were other notable poets of the early and mid-19th century. These poets used the poem as a tool to demonstrate their ideas about their landscape and the traditions of their natives. ‘The Song of Hiawatha’ written by Longfellow, is the best example of this type of tradition using Native American tales.

Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson eventually presented English-language poetry truly indigenous to American literature. Whitman wrote in long lines with democratic inclusion, while Dickinson wrote in concentrated sentences and short lines and stanzas. Robert Frost is a prominent poet of this period who followed strict poetic meter, especially blank verse and lyrical forms. Edwin Arlington Robinson, Stephen Crane, and Carl Sandburg are some other poets of this time.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, two very famous poets took the stage of American poetry and they were TS Eliot and Ezra Pound. They rejected the old traditions of Victorian poetry and effects, instead they experimented with some new ideas in this form of literature. Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Hilda Doolittle, etc. they are some other poets who followed the same path and new ideas in poetry.

During the 1930s a group of Objectivists emerged with a highly modernist school of thought with poets such as Louis Zukofsky, Charles Reznikoff, George Oppen, Carl Rakosi, and Lorine Niedecker. After World War II, a new generation of poets emerged with entirely new approaches and practical lives that included poets such as Karl Shapiro, Randall Jarrell, James Dickey, Theodore Roethke, John Berryman, Robert Lowell, etc. During this time, some African-American poets such as Robert Hayden were also raised, who played an important role in opening a new horizon in poetry through his works and style.

Modern American poetry is distributed among so many traditions, schools, number of groups and tendencies. However, it has retained its fragrance of its original shape and beauty!