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

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