A Modest Proposal
My simple, easy, painless "modest proposal" is quite different from Dr. Swift's ... together let's help students, educators, scholars and poetry lovers connect with the world's greatest poets!
A MODEST PROPOSAL
by Michael R. Burch
First, the really good news: With my “modest proposal” you can help children, students, educators, scholars and poetry lovers connect with the world’s greatest poets.
Even better, your money is not involved and only two minutes of your time!
I will quickly explain how you can help, then I will explain why two minutes of your time will help, in a big way.
The two-minute game plan:
Do a google search for “world’s greatest poets” either with or without the quotation marks. You can cut and paste the search term to save a few seconds.
Scan the search results for my Substack page titled THE WORLD’S GREATEST POETS. It should be close to the top and not hard to find.
Click on or tap the link and spend at least two minutes on the page, more if you can.
When finished reading, scroll down to the bottom of the page, give it a “like,” then leave a comment, which will help with both the Google and Substack algorithms. Also, please consider sharing. If scrolling down is too much trouble on your device, please scroll up to the top of the page, then click the heart icon to like, the quotation balloon to leave a comment, and the circular arrows to share.
If you don’t have a Substack account, access is free, and all you need is your email address and a password you can remember.
WHY YOUR HELP IS REQUESTED
As many of you know, I have devoted thousands of hours to the cause of the fairest of the Muses, by publishing other poets and serving as their editor and advocate. Always working for free, in a labor of love. Two minutes of your time is all I ask in return, and your attention in this matter will be greatly appreciated.
If you can devote a bit more time, please spend some additional time on the page. I think you’ll find it an incredible resource, if you like great poetry.
THE PROBLEM
There are many people actively trying to find the world’s greatest poets, using Google and other search engines, but the other most popular pages are woefully deficient, being heavily biased toward Western male poets while ignoring great poets like Sappho, Basho, Goethe, Rilke, Christina Rossetti, Shelley, Tagore and Virgil.
In other words, a catastrophe.
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT
This is important because the main way people find the best poets and poems these days is to use a search engine like Google. When someone searches for a term like
world’s greatest poets
we would like the names of the greatest poets to come up, with examples of their best poems. Then readers can decide what they like and “take it from there.”
But there is a problem because Google’s two most popular web pages for this search term are woeful.
One page was published by Forbes (the worst of the two) and the other by an outfit called Deseret.
Please don’t click on these pages, or you will help them keep their unearned positions with Google. If you want to read the pages in question, please do a different search by putting the name of the outfit at the beginning of the search term. For instance:
Forbes 20 greatest poets
Deseret 34 greatest poets
Or just take my word, as a longtime poetry lover, poet, editor, publisher and translator.
Why are these pages so inadequate to the task of helping poetry seekers to find the best poets?
The Forbes page, currently number one with Google, fails to mention (prepare to gasp):
Shakespeare
Li Bai aka Li Po
Blake
Dante
Donne
Keats
Milton
Tennyson
Wordsworth
Yeats
Both pages fail to mention:
Basho
Goethe
Rilke
Christina Rossetti
Shelley
Tagore
Virgil
Wyatt
The Deseret ranking includes Mark Twain in the top 34 poets of all time, while leaving out the names above. I love Twain, but for his wonderful prose, not his poetry.
The Forbes page ranks Shel Silverstein above Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, Sappho and Pablo Neruda, which is absurd.
Rudyard Kipling is ranked above Sappho, e. e. cummings, Neruda, T. S. Eliot and Homer.
Mary Oliver is ranked above Walt Whitman. And so on.
HOW LIKING, COMMENTING AND SHARING MY SUBSTACK PAGE HELPS
My page is far more comprehensive than the other pages, mentions all the names above and many more, and provides examples of each poet’s work.
It’s just a helluva lot better, and will help poetry seekers connect with the better poets.
And my page is more global, with English translations of poems by international poets like:
Li Bai
Basho
Buson
Dante
Goethe
Homer
Issa
Lorca
Neruda
Rilke
Rumi
Sappho
Virgil
Please use Google or your favorite search engine to find the Substack page in question, then read it, which will help with both algorithms.
Let’s do it especially for younger people who are actively seeking poetry, perhaps for the first time as part of a school assignment, but also for poetry seekers of all ages.
Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions, not here, but on the page we are targeting to move to the top of the Google results for “world’s greatest poets.”
Thanks!
Mike Burch
This is an astonishingly comprehensive collection in the English language of almost every genre of poetry created in the recorded history of the world's poetry. Hard copy collections cannot possibly begin to include such a universal insight into the human mind at its most aroused and perceptive.
So many realities, so many locations, so many human traditions. Such riches available to anyone who cares. A great gift to the world. Michael Burch is a benefactor to posterity. This collection is unequalled.