A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary greatly in different cultures and time periods. Throughout each civilization and language, poets have used various styles that have changed through the course of literary history, resulting in a history of poets as diverse as the literature they have produced.
The English word "poet" is derived from the French poète, itself descended from the Latin first-declension masculine noun poeta, meaning "poet". The word "poetry" derives from the Latin feminine noun poetria, meaning not "poetry" but "poetess".
French poet Arthur Rimbaud summarized the "poet" by writing,
A poet makes himself a visionary through a long, boundless, and systematized disorganization of all the senses. All forms of love, of suffering, of madness; he searches himself, he exhausts within himself all poisons, and preserves their quintessences. Unspeakable torment, where he will need the greatest faith, a superhuman strength, where he becomes all men: the great invalid, the great criminal, the great accursed—and the Supreme Scientist! For he attains the unknown! Because he has cultivated his soul, already rich, more than anyone! He attains the unknown, and, if demented, he finally loses the understanding of his visions, he will at least have seen them! So what if he is destroyed in his ecstatic flight through things unheard of, unnameable: other horrible workers will come; they will begin at the horizons where the first one has fallen!
I was a novice without a trade
You were an orphan without a name
I was a fighter you couldn't train
And you the flyer on higher planes
I was the secret you couldn't keep
And you the keeper who held the key
I was a criminal out on the streets
And you the lawyer defending me
Of all of the things I could do
I made a fool out of you
With every lie you believed
You made a poet out of me
I was the writer of careless words
And you the reader who finally learned
I'm just a liar in love with love
And you the dreamer just waking up
Of all of the things I could do
I made a fool out of you
With every lie you believed
You made a poet out of me
You're the rain and you're the skies
And I'm a thousand half-ass lies
It's painful but it's true
And I'm the only fool I see
Ain't that a twisted irony?
The poet wrote a sonnet to the lady in the bonnet
Whom he saw across the river from his spot beneath a tree
He wrote into his ditty that he found the lady pretty
But he really felt too tired to leave his spot beneath the tree
Won't you cast your eyes toward me
That my own may say I love thee
Oh at last I see a lady I would wed
Pray don't walk away and leave me
For although t'would surely grieve me
It would hurt me more to have to raise my head
She looked across the river and he felt his body shiver
But she didn't see and walked on by his spot beneath the tree
The bonnet in a minute disappeared and all within it
My only weapon is my pen
And the frame of mind I'm in.
I'm a songwriter, A poet.
I'm a songwriter, A poet.
And the things I flash on Everyday
They all reflect In what I say.
I'm a songwriter I'm a poet
Maybe I'll go to Yuma
I still have his card
If he didn't change his number
He could reclaim my heart
Maybe I need the desert, or maybe I just need him.
I gave him Arizona
And I took the California coast
Tired of borders
I'm going back to where I left my ghost
Don't know if I'll stay there
But I'll stay until my heart gets broke
Maybe I'll go to Yuma
See how a desert rat lives
Hiding beneath the red rocks
Me and the shade we forgive
I know I truly loved him
I still can't brush off his dust
I gave him Arizona
And I took the California coast
Tired of borders
I'm going back to where I left my ghost
Don't know if I'll stay there
But I'll stay until my heart gets broke
He used to chew tobacco
He used to drink my wine
He never learned "I'm sorry"
He never pressed rewind
He was a wild coyote
But he called me baby doll
I gave him Arizona
And I took the California coast
Tired of borders
I'm going back to where I left my ghost
Don't know if I'll stay there
But I'll stay until my heart gets broke
There's a river that runs through Yuma
He's the river that runs through me
Obsession it takes control,
Obsession it eats me whole.
I can't say the words out loud,
So in a rhyme I wrote you down.
Now you'll live through the ages,
I can feel your pulse in the pages.
I have written you down
Now you will live forever
And all the world will read you
And you will live forever
In eyes not yet created
On tongues that are not born
I have written you down
Now you will live forever
Your body lies upon the sheet,
Of paper and words so sweet.
I can't say the words,
so I wrote you into my verse.
Now you'll live through the ages,
I can feel your pulse in the pages.
I have written you down
Now you will live forever
And all the world will read you,
And you will live forever
In eyes not yet created
On tongues that are not born
I have written you down
Now you will live forever
I have read her with these eyes,
I've read her with these eyes,
I have held her in these hands.
I have written you down,
Now you will live forever.
The virtues in the verse,
And you will live forever.
I have written you down
Now you will live forever
And all the world will read you
And you will live forever
In eyes not yet created
On tongues that are not born
I have written you down