Nissim Ezekiel is considered to be a pioneering figure in modern Indian English Poetry.His first book, A Time to Change, was published in 1952.
Some of the notable poets of Ezekiel's time are A. K. Ramanujan, R. Parthasarathy, Gieve Patel, Jayant Mahapatra, Dom Moraes, Kamala Das, Keki N. Daruwalla, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Shiv K. Kumar, Arun Kolatkar and Dilip Chitre.
If Indian poets in English are less well known abroad than the novelists it is probably because their concerns are personal, local and yet universal; they do not write, at least not directly about the nationalist and postcolonial political and cultural themes that the West patronizingly expects, even demands, from the formerly colonized.
Other notable 20th century poets of English poetry in India include Eunice De Souza, Gieve Patel, Kersy Katrak and P. Lal among others.
The younger generation of poets writing in English are Abhay K, Adil Jussawalla, A. J. Thomas, Anju Makhija, Anjum Hasan, Arundhathi Subramaniam, Hoshang Merchant, Madan Gopal Gandhi, Bibhu Padhi, C. P. Surendran, Dileep Jhaveri, Gopi Kottoor, Jayanta Mahapatra, Jeet Thayil, Jerry Pinto, Urvashi Bahuguna, K Srilata, K. V. Dominic, D. C. Chambial, T. Vasudeva Reddy, Makarand Paranjape, Akhil Katyal, Aditya Tiwari, Mani Rao, Meena Kandasamy, Menka Shivdasani, Manohar Shetty, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, Sharanya Manivannan, Ranjit Hoskote, Jaydeep Sarangi, Robin Ngangom, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, S. Anand, Salik Shah, Sudeep Sen, Sukrita Paul Kumar, Nalini Priyadarshni, Vijay Nambisan, Syam Sudhakar, Vihang A. Naik, Tapan Kumar Pradhan, Amitabh Mitra and Yuyutsu Sharma among others.