Anne Sexton's poem "Sylvia's Death" deals with the death of fellow poet Sylvia Plath.

The poem is by Gwendolyn Brooks, who was the first African American poet to win the Pulitzer Prize. Brooks experimented with poetic form throughout her career, but her poetry is often concerned with the urban poor of the area of Chicago in which she lived for much of her life. This poem is a favorite of the Lit GRE's and it is extremely short, so you should make it a point to be able to recognize it on first sight.

The poet described is Edward Estlin Cummings, usually known as e. e. cummings. In addition to his poetry, Cummings was known for his paintings, plays, novels and essays.

The poet in question is Allen Ginsberg, a leading figure in the counterculture movement. His most famous work, “Howl,” gave voice to previously unheard minorities and spoke against war, materialism, consumerism, homophobia, and various forms of repression. Its opening lines are frequently quoted, although “Howl” was often censored because of its depictions of homosexual and heterosexual sex acts.

The poet is Sylvia Plath, wife of the British poet Ted Hughes and an important figure in the genre of confessional poetry. Plath’s work is marked by body- and nature-based imagery, depictions of mental illness, and seemingly mundane details from everyday life.

The poem, broken into 13 fractured, imagistic sections, was written by American poet Wallace Stevens. Stevens was a leading figure in the American modernist poetry world, and in 1955 he won a Pulitzer for his work. Stevens’ work is marked by a preoccupation with intellectual themes and ideas about human consciousness. Some of his best-known poems include “The Emperor of Ice Cream,” “Anecdote of the Jar,” “The Idea of Order at Key West,” and “Sunday Morning,” as well as “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.”

Gertrude Stein is famous for her hosting of salons in Paris, where she lived with her partner Alice B. Toklas until her death in the 1940s. These salons helped support the careers of painters as renowned as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, and Stein herself collected many valuable pieces of artwork. Her poetry attempts to destroy the linear, logical narratives that were the dominant form of writing at the time and create a modern, fragmentary, and sometimes incomprehensible verse.

William Carlos Williams, a medical doctor as well as a poet, was known for experimental works such as “To Elsie” and the poems mentioned in the question stem. Although his vision for modern poetry differed greatly from the views of T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and other literary giants, Williams found like-minded creators in “The Others,” a group of early twentieth-century New York artists and writers.

Gwendolyn Brooks’ poetry, which also includes titles such as “The Bean Eaters,” “Sadie and Maud,” “The Crazy Woman,” and “Speech to the Young,” drew on her experiences living in inner-city Chicago and was diverse in style, incorporating everything from sonnets to blues to free verse. Brooks, an important figure in twentieth-century African-American literature, served as the Poet Laureate of Illinois for many years.

Langston Hughes wore many hats, including poet, novelist, playwright, and social justice advocate. He was an early innovator of the genre known as “jazz poetry,” which incorporates blues- and jazz-inspired rhythms and a sense of linguistic improvisation.