I'm rather fond of John Donne

I like a little humor.
I like a little Coleridge.
I like a couple of Hungarians.
And although it took a good vampire story to get me interested, and even despite Mr. Nash's commentary, I like Byron.

My favorite poem of all time is Porphyria's Lover.

Oh, that reminds me, obliquely: this guy's pretty good.

By modern Era, I'm guessing that you're talking 1800-1947
Where to start. You'll have to forgive the UK bent, but, you know..
You'll also have to forgive the fact that I'm concentrating on poets which are alive, but that's more my thing.

I'm definitely gonna buy me some Kim Addonizi. Simon Armitage is good, Ted Hughes is a local hero. Milner Place hasn't had the recognition he deserves. I won't hear a bad word said about R.S. Thomas. Kathleen Jamie is likeable. There are too many names for me to remember, so I'd reccomend you find yourself some good anthologies and take it from there.

I hate Bloodaxe books, but Staying Alive and Being Alive are fantastic anthologies.

I wouldn't be a nepotistic friend if I didn't tell everyone to preorder what will surely become the best poetry book to be published in the last 1000 years..

Do raunchy limericks count?

(I do like the classics - Elegy written in a country churchyard (Thomas Gray) and Ode to a nightingale (John Keats) being my absolute favorites...!

Modern era? Homer Simpson by far is my favorite!

I love the Black Mountain poets. Also Bridget Pegeen Kelly.

Cavafy.

And Allen Ginsberg, and Gary Snyder, and Robert Lowell, and W.D. Snodgrass, and Anne Sexton, and Amiri Baraka, and Mike Ladd, and Saul Williams, and Adam Mansbach.

And Donald Hall, and Jane Kenyon.

Get yourself some anthologies & browse away. This one, in particular, was my introduction to a bunch of different kinds of poetry. Specific recommendations for older stuff: William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner and Christabel, Keats’s Odes, Donne’s Sonnets, etc. And while not everyone appeciates poetry in translation, I would certainly recommend trying out poets such as Mandelstam, García Lorca, Celan, etc. etc.

Cloudless Snowfall

Great big flakes like white ashes
at nightfall descending
abruptly everywhere
and vanishing
in this hand like the host
on somebody's put-out tongue, she
turns the crucifix over
to me, still warm
from her touch two years later
and thank you,
I say all alone --
Vast whisp-whisp of wingbeats
awakens me and I look up
at a minute-long string of black geese
following low past the moon the white
course of the snow-covered river and
by the way Thank You for
keeping Your face hidden, I
can hardly bear the beauty of this world.

-- Franz Wright

Who do you folks love outside of the Modern era?

I think almost all the poets I know and like falll in the 1800-1947 span in one way or another, or come immediately after (and were deeply affected by events within said era). e.g. Paul Celan (link is to a mefi comment I made, but it's packed with Celan info and links), and Aime Cesaire.

Pale Fire.