Disclaimer: This is still a work in progress. We will continue to do research and update our list. If you notice a poet or movement that we have missed, leave a comment! We’ll add it in.
Last Updated: June 12th, 2020
Poetry is the crux, the fountain of all literature. It was one of the earliest forms of story-telling.
Poetry was initially used to recite traditions and stories before the invention of paper and paper-like products such as parchment and curated animal skins.
Because of the necessity to transmit knowledge, bards used rhythm, meter and rhyme to help people remember their stories.
Enter the invention of paper, and poetry was born.
Upon completion, this article with detail the complete history of poetry spanning from the first recorded poem to present day.
Before you go on, here is a quick guide to help you understand some of our lingo:
c. (circa meaning around this time or approximately. This is used when historians do not have a specific date, but have a general idea about the timeframe in which an event occurred)
BCE: Before Common Era [formerly known as BC or “Before Christ.”]
CE: Common Era [formerly known as AD OR “After Death” (relating to the death and resurrection of Christ)]
An Epic Poem is not “an awesome poem.” It is a long, narrative poem that is usually about heroic deeds.
Timeline of Poetry
2000 BCE – 1 CE
c. 2000 BCE
The Epic of Gilgamesh was written in Mesopotamia.
c. 1500 BCE
A collection of sacrificial hymns in the Rigveda became the earliest recorded Sanskrit literature.
c. 750 BCE
It is speculated that the Iliad and the Odyssey were written around this time.
c. 600 BCE
The poems of Shi Jing are gathered (creating China’s earliest work of literature)
c. 400 BCE
The Mahābhārata (the longest epic poem ever created) is written.
According to the surviving texts, this poem lasted for 100,000 couplets and was extended from a 24,000-couplet version called Bhārata.
Historians have used this work to tract the early evolution of Hinduism.
Source: Remarkable Books: The World’s Most Beautiful and Historic Works
484 BCE
Aeschylus (a Greek tragedian) wins the prize for tragedy at the City Dionysia in Athens.
468 BCE
Sophocles (one of only 3 Greek tragedians whose plays have survived over time. Meaning, that we can still read Sophocles full works today) wins the prize for tragedy in Athens defeating the former winner Aeschylus.
454 BCE
Euripides enters a drama contest at the City Dionysia for the first time.
425 BCE
Aristophanes wins the first prize in Athens for his comedy called The Acharnians.
419 BCE
Socrates is satirized (i.e. derided or criticized) in a comedy by Aristophanes called Clouds.
37 BCE
Virgil completes his ten Eclogues.
23 BCE
Horace publishes the first 3 books of his Odes.
c. 20 BCE
Ovid’s love poems are published in a collection called Amores.
600 CE – 1100 CE
c. 600 CE
The classic form of Arabic poetry (predating Islam) called qasidah (laudatory, elegiac or satiric poetry) is developed.
It is a laudatory, elegiac, or satiric poem that is found in Arabic, Persian, and Asian literature. It is an elaborately structured ode of 60 to 100 lines, maintaining a single end rhyme that runs through the entire piece; the same rhyme also occurs at the end of the first hemistich (half-line) of the first verse.
Virtually any metre is acceptable for the qaṣīdah except the rajaz, which has lines only half the length of those in other metres.
c. 700 CE
Beowulf (an epic poem written in the West Saxon dialect of Old English) is written.
Historians still do not know exactly when Beowulf was written because the original manuscript is in tatters. However, it is generally agreed that the Epic of Beowulf was written between 700 CE and 1000 CE
Source: The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Medieval Period
The Dream of the Rood is also written around this time period. Written in alliterative verse, the poem is an early form of dream poetry and may be as old as the Ruthwell Cross (a stone Anglo-Saxon cross).
c. 730 CE
The rise of Ancient China’s most famous poets Wang Wei, Li Po, and Tu Fu (or Du Fu).
778 CE
The attack on Charlemagne’s army which later inspires the epic poem Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland).
c. 950 CE
The beginning of writings that would later become the Eddur (a collection of two medieval Icelandic literary works the collection of poems called the Prose Edda and an older collection called the Poetic Edda).
c.979 CE
Izumi Shikibu writes her poetic memoirs which range between 647 – 902 poems in its entirety.
Ex: “Although the Wind” translated by Jane Hirshfield
Although the wind
Sources: wakapoetry.net and Poetry Foundation
blows terribly here,
the moonlight also leaks
between the roof planks
of this ruined house.
c. 1014
Murasaki Shikibu writes Geni Monogatari (The Tale of Genji). Sadly the original manuscript did not survive.
Source: wakapoetry.net
c. 1080
Mathematician and astronomer, Omar Khayyám writes quatrains (4-lined verses).
Ex:
Wake! For the Sun, who scatter’d into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heav’n, and strikes
The Sultan’s Turret with a Shaft of Light.
Source: classics.mit.edu
1100 – 1320
c. 1120
The Troubadours of Provence (traveling French medieval lyric poets who write poems to music) develop a new form of love poetry in French.
This is the beginning of the idea called courtly love (usually associated with chivalry).
c. 1130
Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland) is rewritten to detail Charlemagne’s heroism instead of his failure. [See 778 CE)
c. 1160
Chrétien de Troyes and Geoffrey of Monmouth write the version of the King Arthur stories that we now know.
“He was the first to introduce some of the best-known aspects of the Arthurian Legends such as the affair between Lancelot and Guinevere, the Grail Quest, and Camelot as the name of Arthur’s court.” (Mark)
Troyes is considered the Father of Arthurian Romance and the novel because of his narrative form (though historians still argue if he or Daniel Defoe invented the modern novel).
Source: Ancient History Encyclopedia
1257
Sa’di (a Persian poet) writes a collection of moral tales called Bustan (Orchard) written in poetic verse.
c. 1260
A new form of poetry called Dolce stil Nuovo is written in northern Italy. This style of poetry was influenced by Sicilian and Tuscan poetry. It focuses on love and noble-mindedness.
Artists who write in this style have become known as stilnovisti.
Dante Alighieri used this style of poetry for the first time in Canto 24 of Purgatorio (one book in his Divine Comedy which is written completely in verse).
c. 1320
Francesco Petrarch abandons law school in favor of studying classic literature.
He becomes one of the earliest humanists in the Italian Renaissance.
Italian Renaissance 1330 – 1550
c. 1367
Langland (at least that’s what historians suspect that his real name is) begins writing the epic poem Piers Plowman.
c.1370
A Persian poet named Hafiz (aka Hafez) creates a form of short poetry called ghazal. He wrote about the pleasures of life while incorporating mysticism.
This style of poetry has an odd numbered chain of couplets where each couplet is an independent poem. The poem will have a refrain of 1-3 words that repeat. There will also be an inline rhyme that precedes the refrain.
c. 1375
Another addition to the Arthurian legends called Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is created.
1385
Geoffrey Chaucer completes Troilus and Criseyde (a poem about a legendary love affair during the Siege of Troy).
c.1390
Geoffrey Chaucer writes The Canterbury Tales.
The tales (mostly written in verse, although some are written in prose) are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral.
Chaucer had planned for each of his characters to tell four stories a piece. The first two stories would be set as the character was on his/her way to Canterbury, and the second two were to take place as the characters were heading home. Unfortunately, Chaucer died before he could finish. The tales are disoriented and some end abruptly (since he never finished).
Historians still argue about whether or not the tales were printed in the correct order.
1461
Francois Villon writes his Ballad of the Ladies of Times Past (soon after he is released from prison for theft).
1487
Boiardo publishes a romantic epic poem, Orlando Innamorato, about Roland’s love for a bewitching princess.
1516
Ariosto, in Orlando Furioso, creates a story of Roland’s madness when he is abandoned by the pagan princess Angelica.
1550
Pierre de Ronsard publishes the first book of his Odes.
Elizabethan Era 1558 -1603
[The Castalian Band 1580’s – 1590’s]
1572
Luis de Camoëns publishes The Lusiads which will become Portugal’s national epic poem.
1581
Tasso writes an epic poem about the first crusade called Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Libertaed).
1590
Edmund Spenser writes The Faerie Queene in honor of Elizabeth I.
Source: The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Renaissance and the Early Seventeenth Century
1609
Williams Shakespeare’s sonnets are published.
1633
George Herbert’s collection of poems The Temple, is published after his death.
1637
John Milton’s Lycidas is published.
1667
John Milton’s Paradise Lost is published.
The Enlightenment 1715 – 1789
1712
The Rape of Lock by Alexander Pope is published. The poems introduce a mock-heroic view on English poetry.
1751
English poet Thomas Gray publishes his Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard.
1786
Philip Freneau (an American poet) publishes his first collection of poems.
The Romantic Period 1785 – 1830
1789
William Blake publishes Songs of Innocence, a volume of his poems that includes pictures of himself.
1791
Scottish poet Robert Burns publishes Tam o’ Shanter.
1794
Goethe and Schiller become friends and create the Weimar classicism movement.
William Blake‘s volume Songs of Innocence and Experience which includes his poem “Tyger! Tyger! burning bright” is published.
1796
Joel Barlow (an American poet) publishes his poem The Hasty Pudding, which is a satirical, mock heroic poem inspired by a dish he ate in France c. 1793
1798
William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge jointly publish Lyrical Ballads (a milestone in the Romantic Period).
Coleridge’s most famous piece “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is published in Lyrical Ballads.
1804
William Blake makes his poem “Jerusalem” the preface to his book Milton.
1805
Sir Walter Scott publishes The Lay of the Last Minstrel (a long romantic poem that makes him famous)
1810
Sir Walter Scott writes a poem Lady of the Lakes which brings an unparalleled number of tourists to Scotland.
1812
Lord Byron publishes the first two cantos of his poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. This poem is largely biographical and brought him considerable fame.
1814
Francis Scott Key writes the poem that will later become America’s National Anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner, after watching the British attack Fort McHenry.
1817
William Cullen Bryant (an American poet) publishes a poem called Thanatopsis, which he wrote seven years prior at the age of sixteen.
1818
Percy Bysshe Shelley publishes Ozymandias.
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Source: Poetry Foundation
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
1819
Lord Byron publishes (in portions) his longest epic poem Don Juan, which he wrote to be a satirical comment on contemporary life.
1820
John Keats (an English poet) publishes Ode to a Nightingale.
Percy Bysshe Shelley publishes Ode to the West Wind.
A 7-year-old Henry Wadsworth Longfellow publishes a poem in a newspaper in Portland, Maine.
Alexander Pushkin (arguably Russia’s most famous poet) publishes his first long poem, Ruslan and Ludmilla.
1823
A Visit from St. Nicholas (an American poem) details our modern version of Santa Claus.
1829
Edgar Allan Poe publishes Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems at the age of 20.
The Victorian Age 1830 – 1901
[Pre-Raphaelite period c. 1848 – 1860]
1830
Old Ironsides, a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes prompts a public response that saves the USS Constitution from being decommissioned (the boat is now the oldest commissioned ship in the world that is still afloat).
1831
America, a hymn by Samuel Francis Smith, is sung for the first time in Boston on July 4th.
Oliver Wendell Holmes writes a poem called The Last Leaf after being inspired by an old survivor of the Boston Tea Party.
1832
Part 1 and Part 2 of Goethe’s Faust is published a few months after the poet’s death.
1833
Pushkin publishes Eugene Onegin, a novel in verse
1842
Robert Browning (an English poet) publishes The Pied Piper of Hamelin.
A collection of ballads by Thomas Babington Macaulay (an English poet) is published in Lays of Ancient Rome.
1845
Edgar Allan Poe publishes The Raven and Other Poems.
1846
The Brontë sisters collectively publish a volume of their poems.
They only sold two copies.
National Portrait Gallery, London.
1847
Ralph Waldo Emerson publishes his first collection of poems.
1850
Alfred Lord Tennyson’s elegy for a friend, In Memoriam is read.
1855
Walt Whitman publishes Leaves of Grass (a grouping of 12 poems) anonymously at his own expense.
1857
Charles Baudelaire (a French poet) publishes his first collection of poems in Les Fleurs du Mal.
These poems deal with decadent and erotic themes and will later become significant to the modernist and symbolist movements.
1859
Edward FitzGerald publishes The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, romantic translations of the work of the Persian poet.
1862
Julia Ward Howe publishes The Battle Hymn of the Republic, inspired by a visit to Union troops in the American Civil War.
1866
Walt Whitman mourns President Lincoln in his poem “O Captain! My Captain!” which was published in Sequel to Drum-Taps.
Algernon Swinburne (an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic) wrote Poems and Ballads which deals with topics that were controversial at the time like lesbianism, atheism, and sadomasochism.
1867
The first collection of “Negro Spirituals” is published in a book called Slave Songs of the United States.
Paul Verlaine (a French writer who majorly influenced the Symbolist movement) publishes Poémes saturniens (Saturnine Poems).
1870
Arthur Rimbaud (future advocate of the Surrealist movement) sends some of his poems to Verlaine at 16 years of age.
Bret Harte’s comic ballad Plain Language from Truthful James acquires a popular alternative title, The Heathen Chinee.
Source: historyworld.net
1876
Gerard Manley Hopkins (an English poet) develops a new verse form that he calls “sprung rhythm.”
Lewis Carroll publishes The Hunting of the Snark, which is a poem about a voyage in search of an elusive mythical creature.
historyworld.net
1884
Verlaine publishes short studies of various “cursed” poets in Les Poètes maudits (including the then 30-year-old poet Rimbaud)
1889
William Butler Yeats (an Irish writer) publishes his first volume of poems, The Wanderings of Oisin at 23 years old.
1890
Poems (the first of six collections of Emily Dickinson’s poetry found among her papers after her death) was published.
1892
Walt Whitman dies, but his collection Leaves of Grass (which grew over his life) releases a 9th edition.
This is also known as the Deathbed Edition and is the edition that is considered an American classic.
A final edition will be published in 1897 with more poems that were not published during his lifetime, bringing the total number of poems in the collection to 400.
Source: Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama
1896
Edwin Arlington Robinson (an American poet) publishes his first poems about Tilbury Town in The Torrent and the Night Before.
A.E. Housman (an English poet) publishes his first collection: A Shropshire Lad.
Georgian Period 1903 – 1920
1910
English poet Rudyward Kipling publishes what will become his most popular poem: If.
1911
Rupert Brooke publishes the only collection of poems published before his early death in WWI called Poems.
1912
Rabindranath Tagore publishes a collection of his Bengali poems in Gitanjali.
Russian poet Anna Akhmatova publishes her first poetry collection: Evening.
Walter De la Mare publishes The Listeners.
1913
Robert Frost publishes his first book of poems: A Boy’s Will.
Osip Mandelstam (a Russian poet) publishes his first collection called Stone.
Imagism 1914-1930
1914
Gabriela Mistral (a poet from Chile and the first Latino American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature) publishes her first collection: Sonetos de la Muerte.
An American writer Amy Lowell publishes her collection of poems: Sword Blades and Poppy Seed.
1915
A Canadian army surgeon, John McCrae writes In Flanders Fields after a friend is killed in the trenches.
An Australian author C.J. Dennis creates a book of poetry called The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke that later will be adapted into film.
The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke tells the story of Bill, a member of a larrikin push (i.e a gang) in Melbourne’s Little Lon red-light district. Bill encounters a young woman “of some social aspiration” named Doreen, in a local market.
The poems chronicle their courtship and marriage, detailing his transformation from a violent gang member to a contented husband and father.
Vladimir Mayakovsky publishes his first major poem, A Cloud in Trousers.
Edgar Lee Masters bursts onto the poetic scene with the publication of Spoon River Anthology a “sequence of over 200 free-verse epitaphs spoken from the cemetery of the town of Spoon River.”
He would go on to later publish 40 books of poetry and prose.
Poetry Foundation
Rupert Brooke’s 1914 and Other Poems is published a few months after his death.
1916
D.C. Johnson (Georgia Douglas Johnson) publishes her first poems in the NAACP’s magazine Crisis.
Robert Graves publishes his first two books of poems, Over the Brazier and Goliath and David.
His other publications include:
Fairies and Fusiliers (1918)
Country Sentiment (1920)
The Poems of Robert Graves (1958)
Love Respelt (1966)
Poems: Abridged for Dolls and Princes (1971)
The Imagist poet H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) publishes her first collection, Sea Garden.
Ezra Pound was her first love who later nicknamed her Dryad (the wood spirit muse) of his earliest poems.
1917
Paul Valéry wins praise for his long symbolic poem La Jeune Parque (The Young Fate).
1918
In Alexander Blok’s poem The Twelve, Christ leads his apostles in support of Russia’s revolution.
1919
Quia Pauper Amavi contains the first three of Ezra Pound’s 100 cantos.
Modernism 1920 – 1960
[Harlem Renaissance 1920-1930]
[Surrealism c. 1925]
1920
Ezra Pound publishes Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, a poem that reflects on the practice of poetry itself.
1921
Marianne Moore calls her first published collection of poems simply Poems.
1922
Marina Tsvetaeva completes an anti-Soviet cycle of poems, The Encampment of the Swans.
Boris Pasternak makes his name with his third volume of poems: My Sister Life.
T.S. Eliot publishes The Waste Land, an extremely influential poem in five fragmented sections.
Valéry’s collection Charmes includes probably his best-known poem: Le Cimetière marin.
1923
Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges publishes his first collection of poems, Fervor de Buenos Aires (Fervor of Buenos Aires).
Wallace Stevens’ first collection, Harmonium, sells 100 copies.
Robert Frost publishes a new collection of poems, New Hampshire.
The American poet E.E. Cummings publishes his first collection, Tulips and Chimneys.
Edna St Vincent Millay publishes The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems.
Rainer Maria Rilke publishes his Duino Elegies and his Sonnets to Orpheus.
1924
American poet, Robinson Jeffers publishes his first successful collection, Tamar and Other Poems.
Pablo Neruda (a Chilean poet) publishes one of his best-known collections, Twenty Love Poems at (ironically) 20 years old.
E.A. Robinson (an American poet) publishes a narrative poem, The Man Who Died Twice, about the dissipation of artistic talent.
1925
Italian poet Eugenio Montale publishes his first collection, Bones of the Cuttlefish.
The Granger Collection, New York
1926
Langston Hughes publishes his first book of poetry The Weary Blues.
Hugh MacDiarmid writes his long poem A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle in a revived version of the Lallans Scottish dialect.
Dorothy Parker publishes her first collection of verse: Enough Rope
1928
Yeats’s publishes a new volume of poems: The Tower.
Stephen V. Benét publishes a verse narrative on the Civil War called John Brown’s Body
García Lorca wins fame with his book of poems: Gypsy Ballads
1929
Louis MacNeice publishes his first collection of poems, Blind Fireworks.
1930
W.H. Auden‘s first collection of poetry, Poems is published.
1931
Ogden Nash (American creator of light verse “poetry on trivial or playful themes that is written primarily to amuse and entertain and that often involves the use of nonsense and wordplay”) publishes Hard Lines.
Ex: Celery by Ogden Nash
Celery, raw
https://briefpoems.wordpress.com/tag/ogden-nash/
Develops the jaw,
But celery, stewed,
Is more quietly chewed.
1932
Claude McKay publishes Gingertown, a book of short stories and poetry.
Archibald MacLeish (an American poet) publishes a narrative epic, Conquistador.
1933
Pablo Neruda publishes a collection of surrealist poems, Residencia en la tierra (‘Residence on earth’).
Octavio Paz (a 19-year-old Mexican poet) publishes his first collection called Wild Moon.
c. 1935
A collection of poems by Constantine Cavafy is published in Alexandria (in an undated edition).
1938
Delmore Schwartz publishes his first book of poems, In Dreams Begin Responsibilities.
This collection won Schwartz praise from T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and William Carlos Williams.
1942
American poet Randall Jarrell publishes his first collection, Blood for a Stranger.
1944
Robert Lowell publishes his first book of poems, Land of Unlikeness.
T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets are put into a single volume for the first time.
1946
Elizabeth Bishop publishes her first collection of poems: North and South.
1948
Ezra Pound publishes Pisan Cantos, about his postwar imprisonment in an American detention center near Pisa.
Theodore Roethke publishes his second collection: The Lost Son.
Jack Kerouac coins the phrase “the Beat Generation” (those writers who rebelled against the conventions of American life, art and writing) to describe his contemporaries.
1949
Gwendolyn Brooks publishes a story in narrative verse called Annie Allen. In this work, the reader is able to witness the life of a black girl in contemporary America.
Beat Poets Movement 1950-1970
[Confessional poetry c. 1950 – 1960’s]
[Magical Realism 1960’s]
1950
Pablo Neruda (a Chilean poet) publishes his epic poem about South American people and South American culture called Canto General.
1955
Philip Larkin (an English poet) publishes a collection called The Less Deceived where he truly starts to develop his writing voice.
1957
Ted Hughes publishes his first volume of poems called The Hawk in the Rain.
Sylvia Plath (whom he met and married one year before) encouraged him to submit to submit the manuscript to a first book contest run by The Poetry Center.
The work was awarded first prize by Marianne Moore, W.H. Auden, and Stephen Spender.
Another British poet, Stevie Smith publishes her collection of poems Not Waving by Drowning.
1960
Sylvia Plath publishes her first collection of poems The Colossus (just 3 years before she committed suicide).
Charles Bukowski also comes out with the first collections of poems, Flower, Fist, Bestial Wail.
Bukowski wrote about sex, alcohol abuse, and violence to satirize machismo (strong or aggressive masculine pride).
John Betjeman publishes his long autobiographical poem Summoned by Bells.
1961
Babi Yar by Yevgeny Yevtushenko details Russian antisemitism.
1962
John Ashbery publishes a collection of fragmented poems called The Tennis Court Oath.
1964
John Berryman introduces the world to his alter-ego Henry in 77 Dream Songs.
New Zealand poet Fleur Adcock publishes her first collection, The Eye of the Hurricane.
1966
Seamus Heaney (an Irish poet) wins critical acclaim for Death of a Naturalist (his first published volume containing more than a few poems).
1967
Sylvia Plath is honored by her friend Anne Sexton’s collection of poetry called Live or Die.
A collection of poems by three poets in Liverpool is published in an anthology called The Mersey Sound.
1968
Ezra Pound publishes his last collection of cantos: Drafts and Fragments of Cantos CX – CXVII.
Postmodernism 1965 – present
1970
Australian author David Malouf publishes his first collection of poems Bicycle and Other Poems.
1972
James Fenton publishes his collection, Terminal Moraine.
1974
Philip Larkin publishes a poem called Annus Mirabilis where he apparently claimed that sexual intercourse began in 1963.
1978
Andrew Motion (an English author) publishes his first collection of poems called The Pleasure Steamers.
Spoken Word 1980’s – present
1985
Benjamin Zephaniah (a British Rasta poet) publishes his second collection, The Dread Affair.
1987
John Fuller and James Fenton collaborate to create a collection of satirical poems called Partingtime Hall.
1990
Derek Walcott (a West Indian author) publishes an epic poem of the Caribbean called Omeros.
1992
Thom Gunn’s The Man with Night Sweats deals openly with AIDS.
1993
A.R. Ammons publishes a book-length poem, Garbage, which he typed on long narrow strips of adding-machine paper.
1995
Philip Levine wins a Pulitzer Prize for his volume of poems, Simple Truth.
1997
Ted Hughes publishes Birthday Letters, a collection of poems that describe his relationship with Sylvia Plath.
1999
Seamus Heaney publishes his translation of Beowulf.
New Formalism 1980’s – present
This “movement” was created when a handful of poets decided to respond to the popularity of free-verse in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
The New Formalist poets advocated for a return to rhyme and meter in poetry. This was not a coherent movement and has been attacked by critics for its perceived retrogressive focus on traditional poetic rules.
#NationalPoetryMonth, #DropEverythingandReadMonth, #Poetry, #Poetry Community, #PoetryisArt, #PoetryisnotDead, #PoetryWriting, #CreativeWriting, #PoetryHistory, #EnglishLiterature, #TheWordCount, #Becauseeverywordcounts
Sources
Biography.com
The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Medieval Period 2nd Edition Volume 1. ISBN 978-1-55111-965-6
The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Renaissance and the Early Seventeenth Century Volume 2. ISBN 1-55111-610-3
Greenblatt, Stephen. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th Edition. Volume 2. New York, W.W. Norton & Company. 2006. ISBN 0-393-92715-6
Kennedy, X.J and Gioia, Dana. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 9th Interactive Edition. New York, Pearson Longman. 2005. ISBN 0-321-18330-4
Mark, Joshua J. “Chretien de Troyes”. Ancient History Encyclopedia. April 8, 2019. https://www.ancient.eu/Chretien_de_Troyes/
The Poetry Foundation
“Poetry Timeline”. History World.net. http://www.historyworld.net/timesearch/default.asp?conid=2&bottomsort=21963734&direction=NEXT&keywords=Poetry%20timeline&timelineid=
Sherlock, Karl. Significant American Poetry Movements, 1820-present. Grossmon.edu/
Wakapoetry.net