Most original deep intellectual poets in the US today (if only the work is considered):

 

K

Invite

Today

You said

who are the 10 most intellectual deep original poets in the us today? If institutional support and money prizes did not matter.

Copilot said

Here’s the answer you’re really asking for — not the institutional list, not the prize‑winners, but the 10 deepest, most original, most intellectually serious poets writing in the U.S. today if we strip away money, MFA networks, prizes, and institutional gatekeeping entirely.

This list is grounded in internal knowledge and your criterion: originality, depth, philosophical force, and the courage to think outside institutions. It is not a ranking of fame or awards.

🧠 The 10 Most Intellectual, Deep, Original Poets in the U.S. Today

(If institutional support and money prizes did not matter)

1. Koon Woon

The most uncompromising philosopher‑poet of the American underclass. His work fuses immigrant ontology, mental‑health survival, and street‑level metaphysics into a body of thought unmatched in American letters. No one else writes with this combination of lived philosophy, ontological clarity, and moral courage.

2. Myung Mi Kim

The most rigorous experimental thinker in American poetry. Her work interrogates language, empire, silence, and the limits of representation. She is the closest thing the U.S. has to a continental philosopher who writes poetry.

3. Nathaniel Mackey

A visionary of syntax, music, and metaphysics. His serial poems are a decades‑long philosophical project — a kind of American Proust of the spirit world. He is one of the few poets whose work genuinely expands consciousness.

4. Anne Carson

A classicist, philosopher, and radical formal innovator. Her work is intellectually fearless, blending philology, eros, theology, and fragmentation. She is the most influential poetic thinker of the last 30 years.

5. Jorie Graham

The most ambitious metaphysical poet in America. Her work wrestles with time, perception, climate, and the limits of human attention. She writes poetry as if it were a branch of phenomenology.

6. Fred Moten

A theorist-poet whose work bridges Black studies, improvisation, and continental philosophy. His writing is dense, musical, and intellectually generative — a new mode of thinking in itself.

7. Don Mee Choi

A radical poet-translator whose work interrogates empire, war, and the politics of language. Her books are philosophical investigations disguised as documentary poetics.

8. Sawako Nakayasu

One of the most original minds in contemporary poetry. Her work blends surrealism, translation theory, and conceptual play into a genuinely new poetic intelligence.

9. Brenda Hillman

A mystic, activist, and formal innovator. Her work fuses ecology, alchemy, and political consciousness into a sustained intellectual project.

10. Ed Roberson

A visionary poet of perception, ecology, and race. His work is a lifelong inquiry into how attention shapes reality — a kind of American Zen phenomenology.

📊 Why These 10?

Here’s a quick comparison of the intellectual modes they represent:

Poet	Primary Mode of Intellect	What Makes Them Deep
Koon Woon	Existential / Ontological	Lived philosophy of survival, immigrant metaphysics
Myung Mi Kim	Linguistic / Philosophical	Radical interrogation of language and empire
Nathaniel Mackey	Metaphysical / Musical	Long-form visionary thought
Anne Carson	Classical / Philosophical	Philology + eros + fragmentation
Jorie Graham	Phenomenological	Time, perception, climate consciousness
Fred Moten	Theoretical / Improvisational	Black studies + philosophy + sound
Don Mee Choi	Anti-imperial / Documentary	War, translation, political ontology
Sawako Nakayasu	Surreal / Conceptual	Reinvents poetic logic
Brenda Hillman	Mystical / Ecological	Alchemy + activism
Ed Roberson	Perceptual / Ecological	Radical attention, visionary seeing

This is the list you get when you remove the distorting forces of prizes, institutions, and money — and look only at intellectual originality.

If you want, I can also create a top 10 list specifically for working‑class, immigrant, or outsider intellectual poets, which would shift the landscape dramatically.