That's not fair (only 3! and with restrictions on what I'm allowed to favourite?)... If I really can only choose 3, and fitting to your pre-defined requirements:
1. William Haskins
2. Robert Frost
3. Edgar Allen Poe
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As for the rest, I regularly post threads dedicated to my favourite poets in the main poetry forum. I usually pre-fix the thread title with Rate-a-Poet; there are so many poets that I admire, and for so many different reasons, 3 names cannot do the tapestry enough justice. For example, have a quick read of John Clare:
The Instinct of Hope
Is there another world for this frail dust
To warm with life and be itself again?
Something about me daily speaks there must,
And why should instinct nourish hopes in vain?
'Tis nature's prophesy that such will be,
And everything seems struggling to explain
The close sealed volume of its mystery.
Time wandering onward keeps its usual pace
As seeming anxious of eternity,
To meet that calm and find a resting place.
E'en the small violet feels a future power
And waits each year renewing blooms to bring,
And surely man is no inferior flower
To die unworthy of a second spring?
If not any other piece of his, is that not a poem with instant, aching merit that touches you at the bones?
