After taking part in the Presidential Inaugural ceremony, all online articles refer to Amanda Gorman as a poet.
Poetess, meaning a female poet, is a well established term of the English language, so why do they call her poet?
PS: I don’t think that the suggested duplicate question has much to do with what I am asking. My concern is specific about the usage of the term poetess.
Basically, poetess is dated. Poet is the common standard irrespective of one's gender.
In English, over time, the gender-specific nature of many nouns started to be questioned. Is it necessary to distinguish that one is a female poet vs a male poet? Or a male vs female author? Even the term 'actress' is starting to be seen as outdated by some, who prefer to opt for 'female actor' when it's necessary to specify the gender.
Where the gender makes a significant difference (such as mother vs father), such nouns, of course are not questioned. In my stated examples, however, the effect of gender-specific nouns can be seen as negligible, if not distracting.
