what card represents a poet?

Barleywine

I would slice it three ways:

Aspiring poet, full of vision and enthusiasm, but perhaps overwrought: Page of Cups

Established poet, at the height of his or her powers: Knight of Cups

Poet Laureate, honored but "resting on laurels," coasting: King of Cups

When I think of tarot and poetry, a couple of poems always spring to mind: Coleridge's ecstatic Kubla Khan and the mystical Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

Hmm, in retrospect, I should have fit the Queen in their somewhere. Queens as a group are sometimes thought of as more instinctual than learned and calculated. Maybe "songwriter" would be a good assumption.
 

EmpyreanKnight

The Knight of Cups reminds me of a dreamy, accomplished swain of Ye Olde Englande, while the Page of Cups makes me think of guitar-toting troubadours in the France of the Middle Ages. For sheer wit, a brazen style and silvered tongue, I feel that the Magician rules preeminent.
 

Grizabella

I'm with the others who suggested the Fool. The Fool was the person expected to entertain the king's court so poetry was in his repertoire I'm sure.
 

MysticMoonlight

My mind goes right to either the Page of Cups or Knight of Cups. I can easily picture either of them being full of inspiring and/or heartfelt words and emotions just looking and waiting for a significant other to devote them to :)
 

ihcoyc

A lot would depend on the different kinds of poetry imagined. Authors of fiction generally are the Mountebank/Magician for me, the fellow who wields his characters as props. The knight, page, and king of Cups are for romantic and lyric poetry; but the more the poem is supposed to be clever and witty rather than emotive, that would strike me as Swords business.
 

Barleywine

I'm having a hard time seeing the Fool in his guise as a court jester being much of a poet, since I think most of his verse would have been droll doggerel, some of it lampooning the monarch because he could get away with it. Now a bard would be another matter; that might spill over into Swords or even Pentacles if the bard were a chronicler of the adventures of the King and his court.
 

C_McQueen

My first thought was The Magician, but I think I see The Magician as more of a "professional, published poet". My other thought was the Knight of Cups, but I think of him as more of the hobbyist poet, who really only writes poetry in order to woo a love interest.
 

Nemia

One of the Swords court cards; feelings are not enough to make a poet, he/she also needs a strong talent for the use of language. Great poetry does more than just express feelings, it conveys concepts and does totally new things with language (thinking of Mallarme, Hoelderlin, Novalis, Benn, Bachmann, Wordsworth, Leonard Cohen, Tchernichovsky...). It's a very abstract and reflective art. So I'd say Queen of Swords for poets who express the invidual, personal point of view, and King of Swords for political, conceptual poets.

I don't read the majors as individual persons, but the Magician or the Sun can represent the art of poetry, and any court card dignified by either of them could represent a poet.

There is always the Blake Tarot for arts-related question. There, Poetry is a suit and corresponds to Wands, and Science is Swords.

Nevertheless, in other decks, a poet would be for me a Magician with words, a communicator, a Mercury. Or if we go the mythological road, the Sun god Apollo was also the god of all the arts.
 

HighPriestessX

The Fool represents such a person...hpx
 

Topaz_CharmTemple

Great question & great responses from previous posters.

I'd like to add that the Ace of Cups or Ace of Swords could represent, not a poet, but rather the art of poetry itself. The Ace of Cups is raw creativity & emotion, full of potential, waiting to be crafted & honed. It's the beating heart of the poet & needs to be protected, developed, nurtured, fed. The Ace of Swords could represent a brainstorming session in which ideas are honed & developed into meaningful words. It's the moment in which the poet picks up her pen & gets words on the page.

Just some thoughts! =)