Poets
- James Whitcomb Riley
- James Wright
- Jean Toomer
- Jimmy Santiago Baca
- Joan Murray
- Joe Brainard
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- John Ashbery
- John Berryman
- John Bunyan
- John Davidson
- John Donne
- John Keats
- John Logan
- John Masefield
- John McCrae
- John Milton
- John of the Cross
- John Skelton
- Jon Anderson
- Jonathan Swift
- Jonathan Williams
- Joyce Kilmer
- Judith Viorst
- Julia Alvarez
- Julia Ward Howe
- June Jordan
- Kahlil Gibran
- Katherine Mansfield
- Langston Hughes
- Laurence Binyon
- Laurence Dunbar
- Lawrence Ferlinghetti
- L. E. L.
- Leonard Cohen
- Lewis Carroll
- Li Bai
- Lionel Johnson
- Li-Young Lee
- Lord Alfred Tennyson
- Lorraine Hansberry
- Louise Erdrich
- Louis MacNeice
- Lucille Clifton
- Marcus Aurelius
- Margaret Atwood
- Marianne Moore
- Mark Doty
- Martial
- Mary Oliver