US Poet Laureates, since 1937

With poetry, it's sometimes difficult to decide which poets to read as a starting point. If you are interested in a survey of American poetry since 1937, you could use the US Poet Laureate as a starting point. Notice I say starting point; this list in no way is representative of the wide range of talent (issues of gender and racial inclusiveness or lack thereof) in the United States, but it will give a sense of where poetry and politics meet or collide.

1937-1941 — Joseph Auslander
1943-1944 — Allen Tate
1944-1945 –Robert Penn Warren
1945-1946 — Louise Bogan
1946-1947 — Karl Shapiro
1947-1948 — Robert Lowell
1948-1949 — Leonie Adams
1949-1950 — Elizabeth Bishop
1950 - 1952 — Conrad Aiken
1952 — William Carlos Williams
1956-1958 — Randall Jarrell
1958-1959 — Robert Frost
1959-1961 — Richard Eberhart
1961-1963 — Louis Untermeyer
1963-1964 — Howard Nemerov
1964-1965 — Reed Whittemore
1965-1966 — Stephen Spender
1966-1968 — James Dickey
1968-1970 — William Jay Smith
1970-1971 — William Stafford
1971-1973 — Josephine Jacobsen
1973-1974 — Daniel Hoffman
1974-1976 — Stanley Kunitz
1976-1978 — Robert Hayden
1978-1980 — William Meredith
1981-1982 — Maxine Kumin
1982-1984 — Anthony Hecht
1984-1985 — Robert Fitzgerald
1984-1985 — Reed Whittemore
1985-1986 — Gwendolyn Brooks
1986-1987 — Robert Penn Warren
1987-1988 — Richard Wilbur
1988-1990 — Howard Nemerov
1990-1991 — Mark Strand
1991-1992 — Joseph Brodsky
1992-1993 — Mona Van Duyn
1993-1995 — Rita Dove
1995-1997 — Robert Hass
1997-2000 — Robert Pinsky
1999-2000 — Special Bicentennial Consultants, 1999-2000: Rita Dove, Louise Glück, and W.S. Merwin
2000-2001 — Stanley Kunitz
2001-2003 — Billy Collins
2003-2004 — Louise Glück
2004-2006 — Ted Kooser
2006-2007 Donald Hall
2007-8 Charles Simic
2008-- Kay Ryan

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Abuja Writers' Forum Call for Submissions

Wordsbody has announced the following call for submissions: CAVALCADE literary journal, devoted to publishing original stories, poems,one-act plays, reviews, critical essays and art from an African perspective,will debut in October 2008 with a special edition. The tri-annual journal, a project of the Abuja Writers' Forum (AWF), is now seeking submissions for the second and third editions. Deadline: October 30, 2008 See more details here: Contribute to Cavalcade.
Read more

Roland Mhasvi's Flowers

Image
This is the cover of my copy of Roland Masvi's Flowers of Yesterday, a collection I reviewed in 1996 for The Herald. I was going through my old stuff when I saw this book in my old collection.  As I was flipping through the pages, I saw the cut-out for the original review, which in part reads: "This is a collection of highly esoteric poetry..., which can be charged of what Afrocentric scholars have described as 'piles of esoterica and ostentatious erudition'... The language is to the ordinary reader opaque, the imagery is inaccessible and the symbolism is surprisingly unusual but invitingly novel...real food for scholars."   The review just reminds me of the Chinweizu days, when we, as university students, had rediscovered African literature and its theory. Talking about Afrocentricity had a certain appeal, and we were looking at a lot of writing through the lenses of this newly-discovered Afrocentricity. Looking back, perhaps there was more in Mhasvi's poe
Read more

FREEDOM, a poem on South Africa by Afzal Moolla

Freedom The shackles have been cast off. Chains broken. People once squashed, under the jackboot of Apartheid, are free. Free at last! Freedom came on the 27th day in that April, 1994. Freedom from prejudice. From institutionalised racism. From being relegated to second-class citizenship. Freedom came and we danced. We cried. We ululated as we elected our revered Mandela. President Nelson Mandela. Our very own beloved 'Madiba'. Black and white and brown and those in-between, All hues of this rainbow nation, rejoiced as we breathed in the air of freedom and democracy. Today we pause. We remember. We salute. The brave ones whose sacrifices made this day possible, on that 27th day of April, 18 years ago. Today we dance. We sing. We ululate. We cry. Tears of joy and tears of loss. Of remembrance and of forgiveness. Of reconciliation and of memories. Today we pause. We acknowledge the tasks ahead. The hungry. The naked. The destitut
Read more