Poets no one has heard of

This is probably not what you mean, but it's a sad story in my opinion.

I'm a great admirer of James Whitcomb Riley, and I taught a number of his poems to my daughter, who is now grown. She's been wanting a copy of his collected works, and I went to find one at our local Megabook store. They didn't have a copy. I asked the information clerk, and he had never heard of Riley and couldn't find a copy in their computer.

Young people these days!

John Yamrus is a great poet IMO - cant go wrong with one of his books -

In terms of new poets, I really enjoyed Cynthia Zarin's collection "The Watercourse."

My favorite English language poet is probably Ted Hughes, but he is well known, of course. I also love Dylan Thomas - again, hardly unheard of. I also love most works by Wilfred Owen.

Since you mentioned Akhmatova, I am going to list some non-English favorites - hope one of those will be new to you

In Russian, my favorite classic is probably Alexandr Blok (at the moment). It changes. I am also a big fan of Afanasii Fet, Marina Tsvetaeva, and Nikolai Gumilev.

In Polish, my favorite poets are Czesław Miłosz and Wisława Szymborska (sorry for being so predictable).

In Old Norse my favorite poet is Egill Skallagrimsson. He might also be my favorite named poet of all times.

I also enjoy the works of "anonymous" in a variety of languages

Roger J Carlson said:

This is probably not what you mean, but it's a sad story in my opinion.

I'm a great admirer of James Whitcomb Riley, and I taught a number of his poems to my daughter, who is now grown. She's been wanting a copy of his collected works, and I went to find one at our local Megabook store. They didn't have a copy. I asked the information clerk, and he had never heard of Riley and couldn't find a copy in their computer.

Young people these days!

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Yes, too many youth are ignorant of much these days but often it is simply because they haven't been taught nor exposed to various things including the poetry of James Whitcomb Riley.

Amazon has one:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0253207770/?tag=absolutewritedm-20

And his poems are easily accessible (and thus printable) online:

http://www.poemhunter.com/james-whitcomb-riley/

(I grew up loving his poetry too; not only did my family read them to me, my beloved Pop (grandfather) had a Victrola record of James Whitcomb Riley poetry being read!)

Charles Swidoll.

He's a poet and inspirational speaker from my home state, West Virginia. He's not well known, but he's good. He writes inspirational poetry.

ETA: Here's a link to one of his poems online. As far as I know, this site is legitimate and has permission to display his poetry.

Attitude by Charles Swidoll

I believe my favourite living poet is relatively unknown on an international scale, though I can't be sure. Barry Dempster. (There is a link to 6 of his poem at this University of Toronto Library Bio page.)