A better description would be the Ten Best German Language Poems, since several of the poems listed here are by non-German poets. In any event, this is an impossible challenge, since the possibilities are endless. One could easily choose ten poems of Goethe or Rilke and make the case that THOSE are the ten best. Like every list, this is entirely subjective, but I've attempted to pick ten poems from ten different poets that indisputably belong to the canon of great world literature, and that have a special historical and cultural significance to the course of German literature. I deeply regret leaving out Annette von Droste-Hülshoff's Am Turm, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's Der römische Brunnen, Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Ballade des äußeren Lebens and Günter Eich's Inventur, but I guess these just made it onto the list through the back door.
1) Erlkönig (1782) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
2) Lebenslauf (1800) Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin
3) Der Einsiedler (1835) Joseph von Eichendorff
4) Nachtgedanken (1844) Heinrich Heine
5) Denk es, o Seele (1851) Eduard Mörike
6) Archaischer Torso Apollos (1908) Rainer Maria Rilke
7) Grodek (1914) Georg Trakl
8) An die Nachgeborenen (1938) Bertolt Brecht
9) Todesfuge (1948) Paul Celan
10) Die gestundete Zeit (1953) Ingeborg Bachmann
Years ago I put together a better, more comprehensive list that may be of interest: 50 Near Perfect Books of German Poetry
Also: The Ten Greatest German Novels
The Ten Greatest German Novellas
Top Ten German Poets
Three German Writers Who Were Denied Asylum in America
Two Americans Who Rescued German Literature
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