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Poetry Timeline 1950 - 1974

700-1699 | 1700-1799 | 1800-1849 | 1850-1899 | 1900-1924 | 1925-1949 | 1950-1974| 1975+

1950—1952

Conrad Aiken serves as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.

1950s

The so-called Beat Movement poets begin writing and publishing in the 1950s.
The Black Mountain poetic school originates in the 1950s.

1950-1975

Structuralism emerges in the middle of the 20th century as an important literary movement.

1950

Edna St. Vincent Millay dies.
Gwendolyn Brooks is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her collection Annie Allen.
Edgar Lee Masters dies.

1951

Langston Hughes's "Harlem" is published in his collection Montage of a Dream Deferred.
Garrett Hongo is born.
Swedish poet and novelist Pär F. Lagerkvist is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Carl Sandburg is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his collection Complete Poems.

1952

Rita Dove is born.
Gary Soto is born.
French poet, novelist, and dramatist François Mauriac is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Marianne Moore is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her Collected Poems.
William Carlos Williams appointed Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress but does not serve.

1953

Dylan Thomas dies.
Archibald Macleish is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his Collected Poems 1917-1952.

1954

Lorna Dee Cervantes is born.
Louise Erdrich is born.
Theodore Roethke is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his collection The Waking.

1955

Cathy Song is born.
Wallace Stevens dies.
Wallace Stevens is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his Collected Poems.

1956

Richard Wilbur's "Boy at the Window" is published in his collection Things of This World.
Walter de la Mare dies.
Elizabeth Bishop is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her collection Poems — North and South.
Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

1956—1958

Randall Jarrell serves as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.

1957

Martín Espada is born.
Richard Wilbur is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his collection Things of This World.

1958

John Updike's "Ex-Basketball Player" is published in his collection The Carpentered Hen and Other Tame Creatures.
e. e. cummings's "l(a," "old age sticks" and "maggie and milly and molly and may" are published in his collection 95 Poems.
Denise Levertov's "Merritt Parkway" is published in her collection Overland to the Islands.
Alfred Noyes dies.
Robert Penn Warren is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his collection Promises: Poems 1954-1956.

1958—1959

Robert Frost serves as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.

1959—1961

Richard Eberhart serves as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.

1959

Stanley is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his collection Selected Poems 1928-1958.
Italian poet Salvatore Quasimodo is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

1960s—

Poststructuralism arises as a literary theory in the 1960s.

1960s—1970s

The Black Aesthetic Movement, also known as the Black Arts Movement, takes place from the 1960s into the 1970s.

1960

Robert Francis's "The Base Stealer" is published in his collection The Orb Weaver.
Gwendolyn Brooks's "The Bean Eaters," "Strong Men, Riding Horses" and "The Explorer" are published in her collection The Bean Eaters.
Ted Hughes's "Hawk Roosting" is published in his collection Lupercal.
Sylvia Plath's "Mushrooms" is published in The Colossus.
Anne Sexton's "What's That" is published in her collection To Bedlam and Part Way Back.
French poet Saint John Perse (Marie René Auguste Alexis Léger) is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
W. D. Snodgrass is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his collection Heart's Needle.

1961

Maxine Kumin's "400-Meter Freestyle" is published in her collection Halfway.
Robert Frost recites his poem "The Gift Outright" at the inauguration of President Kennedy.
Phyllis McGinley is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her collection Times Three: Selected Verse from Three Decades.

1961—1963

Louis Untermeyer serves as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.

1962

Anne Sexton's "The Fortress" is published in her collection All My Pretty Ones.
Robert E. Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays" is published in his collection A Ballad of Remembrance.
e. e. cummings dies.
Alan Dugan is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his collection Poems.

1963?

Sylvia Plath's "Blackberrying" is written by this time, and later published posthumously in her collection Crossing the Water, 1971.

1963

James A. Wright's "A Blessing" is published in his collection The Branch Will Not Break.
Sylvia Plath's "Mirror" is published in the New Yorker; later included in the posthumous collection Crossing the Water, 1971.
May Swenson's "Southbound on the Freeway" is published in her collection To Mix with Time: New and Selected Poems.
W. E. B. Dubois dies.
Robert Frost dies.
Sylvia Plath dies.
Theodore Roethke dies.
William Carlos Williams dies.
Greek poet George Seferis (Georgios Stylianou Seferiadis) is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
William Carlos Williams is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his collection Pictures from Breughel.

1963—1964

Howard Nemerov serves as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.

1964

Eve Merriam's "Metaphor" and "Onomatopoeia" are published in her collection It Doesn't Always Have to Rhyme.
Louis Simpson is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his collection At the End of the Open Road.

1964—1965

Reed Whittemore serves as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.

1965

Naomi Long Madgett's "Alabama Centennial" is published in her collection Star by Star.
T. S. Eliot dies.
Randall Jarrell dies.
John Berryman is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his collection 77 Dream Songs.

1965—1966

Stephen Spender serves as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.

1966

Seamus Heaney's "Digging" and "Follower" are published in his collection Death of a Naturalist.
William Stafford's "Fifteen" is published in his collection The Rescued Year.
Richard Eberhart is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his collection Selected Poems.
German-Swedish poet Nelly Sachs is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

1966—1968

James Dickey serves as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.

1967

Langston Hughes dies.
John Masefield dies.
Dorothy Parker dies.
Carl Sandburg dies.
Jean Toomer dies.
Anne Sexton is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her collection Live or Die.

1968

Karl Shapiro's "Auto Wreck" is published in his collection Selected Poems.
Nikki Giovanni's "Knoxville, Tennessee" is published in her collection Black Judgement.
Samuel Allen's "To Satch (American Gothic)" is published in his collection Ivory Tusks and Other Poems.
Cecil Day-Lewis is named Poet Laureate of England.
Anthony Hecht is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his collection The Hard Hours.

1968—1970

William Jay Smith serves as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.

1969

Maya Angelou's "Harlem Hopscotch" is published in her collection The Poetry of Maya Angelou.
Lucille Clifton's "Miss Rosie" is published in her collection Good Times: Poems.
Adrienne Rich's "The Observer" is published in her collection Leaflets.
George Oppen is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his collection Of Being Numerous.

1970s—

New Historicism, a school of literary analysis, originates in the 1970s.

1970

Richard Howard is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his collection Untitled Subjects.

1970—1971

William Stafford serves as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.

1971

Lawson Fusao Inada's "Plucking Out a Rhythm" is published in his collection : Before the War: Poems as They Happen.
W. S. Merwin is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his collection The Carrier of Ladders.
Chilean poet Pablo Neruda is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

1972

Seamus Heaney's "Midnight" is published in his collection Wintering Out.
Anne Sexton's "Oysters" is published in her collection The Book of Folly.
Marianne Moore dies.
Ezra Pound dies.
John Betjeman is named Poet Laureate of England.
James Wright is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his Collected Poems.

1973

Victor Hernandez Cruz's "Business" is published in his collection Mainland.
Marge Piercy's "To Be of Use" is published in her collection To Be of Use.
W. H. Auden dies.
Maxine Kumin is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her collection Up Country.

1973—1974

Daniel Hoffman serves as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.

1974

Diana Chang's "Most Satisfied by Snow" is published in the collection Asian-American Heritage: An Anthology of Prose and Poetry, edited by David Hsin-Fu Wand.
John Crowe Ransom dies.
Anne Sexton dies.
Robert Lowell is awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his collection The Dolphin.

1974—1976

Stanley Kunitz serves as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.

Source: Exploring Poetry, Gale, 1997.

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