1500 BC Sanskrit literature begins with Rigveda
Sacrificial hymns of the Aryans, gathered in the Rigveda, become the earliest Sanskrit literature

750 BC Homer is written down
The Homeric texts, the Iliad and the Odyssey, are written down - probably in Ionia

600 BC China's earliest poems
The poems of the Shi Jing, China's earliest work of literature, are gathered together

37 BC Virgil, poet of Italy
Virgil's reputation is established by his ten Eclogues, influenced by the Italian countryside in the region of his birth near Mantua

23 BC Odes from a Sabine farm
The first three books of Horace's Odes are published, written on his Sabine farm

20 BC Ovid publishes love poems
A collection of witty love poems, entitled Amores, brings Ovid an early success

380 Kalidasa at Gupta court
Kalidasa, the most distinguished of India's authors in classical Sanskrit, is at the Gupta court in Patna

600 Pre-Islamic Arabic poetry
The classic form of Arabic poetry, predating Islam, evolves as the qasidah

730 T'ang trio of poets
Three of China's most famous poets - Wang Wei, Li Po and Tu Fu - are contemporaries during the T'ang dynasty

778 Incident at Roncesvalles
An attack on Charlemagne's army, traditionally at the pass of Roncesvalles in the Pyrenees, is later the basis for the Chanson de Roland

950 Eddas in Iceland
The material of the Eddas, taking shape in Iceland, derives from earlier sources in Norway, Britain and Burgundy

1080 Omar Khayyámwrites quatrains
Omar Khayyám, mathematician and astronomer, writes four-line verses, or quatrains, in his spare time

1102 Chansons de geste
The chansons de geste, performed by professional minstrels in castles and manors, celebrate the exploits of Charlemagne and his paladins

1120 Troubadours and courtly love
The troubadours of Provence develop a new form of love poetry in French, introducing courtly love

1130 Chanson de Roland
A popular French poem, the Chanson de Roland, turns a minor disaster in one of Charlemagne's campaigns into a tale of epic heroism

1160 French authors make hero of Arthur
Chrétien de Troyes and other French authors turn the stories of Arthur and his knights into a romance of courtly love

1257 Sa'di's Bustan
The Persian poet Sa'di publishes his Bustan ('Orchard'), a collection of moral tales in verse

1260 Sweet new style in Italy
A new form of poetry is written in northern Italy, described later by Dante as a sweet new style - the dolce stil nuovo

1307 Dante begins Divine Comedy
Dante, in exile from Florence, begins work on The Divine Comedy - completing it just before his death, 14 years later

1327 Petrarch sees Laura in church
Petrarch glimpses Laura in a church in Avignon and falls helplessly in love with her - or so he tells us

1341 Petrarch as poet laureate in Rome
A laurel wreath is placed on the brow of Petrarch in Rome, in a renewal of interest in the classical world

1367 Will is possibly Langland
A narrator who calls himself Will, and whose name may be Langland, begins the epic poem of Piers Plowman

1367 Chaucer serves in palace
One of four new yeomen of the chamber in Edward III's household is Geoffrey Chaucer

1370 Hafiz and the ghazal
The Persian poet Hafiz perfects a form of short poem, the ghazal, dwelling on the pleasures of life with an undercurrent of Sufi mysticism

1375 Green knight issues challenge
The courtly poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight tells of a mysterious visitor to the round table of King Arthur

1385 Chaucer completes Troilus and Criseyde
Chaucer completes Troilus and Criseyde, his long poem about a legendary love affair in ancient Troy

1387 Chaucer begins Canterbury Tales
Chaucer begins an ambitious scheme for 100 Canterbury Tales, of which he completes only 24 by the time of his death

1461 Villon remembers ladies of time past
Francois Villon, recently released from prison, writes his Ballad of the Ladies of Times Past

1487 Roland in love
Boiardo publishes a romantic epic, Orlando Innamorato, about Roland's love for a bewitching princess

1516 Orlando mad says Ariosto
Ariosto, in Orlando Furioso, tells of Roland's madness when he is abandoned by the pagan princess Angelica

1550 Ronsard's Odes
Pierre de Ronsard publishes the first four books of his Odes

1572 Camoëns and The Lusiads
Luis de Camoëns publishes The Lusiads, the poem which becomes Portugal's national epic

1581 Tasso finds romance in first crusade
Tasso, in Gerusalemme Liberata ('Jerusalem Liberated'), turns the first crusade into a romantic epic

1590 Spenser flatters Fairy Queen
English poet Edmund Spenser celebrates the Protestant Elizabeth I as The Faerie Queene

1609 Shakespeare's sonnets
Shakespeare's sonnets, written ten years previously, are published

1633 Herbert's posthumous poems
George Herbert's only volume of poems, The Temple, is published posthumously

1637 Milton's Lycidas
John Milton's Lycidas is published in memory of a Cambridge friend, Edward King

1650 Anne Bradstreet is published in London
The poems of Massachusetts author Anne Bradstreet are published in London under the title The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America

1667 £10 for Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is published, earning its author John Milton just £10

1712 Pope reveals rape of lock
Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock introduces a delicate vein of mock-heroic in English poetry

1751 Gray's Elegy
English poet Thomas Gray publishes his Elegy written in a Country Church Yard

1762 Fingal a forgery
Fingal, supposedly by the medieval Celtic poet Ossian, has a huge and fashionable success but is revealed to be a forgery by James Macpherson

1778 The Battle of the Kegs
Francis Hopkinson's popular ballad The Battle of the Kegs describes an ingenious American threat to the British navy

1781 The British Prison Ship
US poet Philip Freneau describes in The British Prison Ship the horrors of his experiences as a prisoner

1786 Philip Freneau's Poems
US author Philip Freneau publishes his first collection of poems, dating back to 1771

1789 Blake sings of innocence
William Blake publishes Songs of Innocence, a volume of his poems with every page etched and illustrated by himself

1791 Tam o' Shanter
Scottish poet Robert Burns publishes Tam o' Shanter, in which a drunken farmer has an alarming encounter with witches

1794 Goethe and Schiller in Weimar
Goethe and Schiller become friends, and together create the movement known as Weimar classicism

1794 'Tyger! Tyger! burning bright'
William Blake's volume Songs of Innocence and Experience includes his poem 'Tyger! Tyger! burning bright'

1796 The Hasty Pudding
US author Joel Barlow publishes his mock-heroic poem The Hasty Pudding, inspired by a dish eaten in 1793 in France

1797 Kubla Khan
Samuel Taylor Coleridge says that while writing Kubla Khan he is interrupted by 'a person on business from Porlock'

1798 Lyrical Ballads
English poets Wordsworth and Coleridge jointly publish Lyrical Ballads, a milestone in the Romantic movement

1798 Ancient Mariner
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' is published in Lyrical Ballads

1804 Blake's 'Jerusalem'
William Blake includes his poem 'Jerusalem' in the Preface to his book Milton

1805 Lay of the Last Minstrel
Walter Scott publishes The Lay of the Last Minstrel, the long romantic poem that first brings him fame

1810 Lady of the Lake
Walter Scott's poem Lady of the Lake brings tourists in unprecedented numbers to Scotland's Loch Katrine

1812 Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
The first two cantos are published of Byron's largely autobiographical poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bringing him immediate fame

1814 The Star-Spangled Banner
US lawyer Francis Scott Key writes The Star-Spangled Banner after seeing the British bombard Fort McHenry

1817 Bryant's Thanatopsis
US poet William Cullen Bryant publishes Thanatopsis, written seven years previously at the age of 16

1818 Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe Shelley publishes probably his best-known poem, the sonnet Ozymandias

1819 Byron's Don Juan
Byron begins publication in parts of his longest poem, Don Juan an epic satirical comment on contemporary life

1820 Ode to a Nightingale
English poet John Keats publishes Ode to a Nightingale, inspired by the bird's song in his Hampstead garden

1820 Ode to the West Wind
English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley publishes Ode to the West Wind, written mainly in a wood near Florence

1820 Longfellow's first published poem
7-year-old Henry Wadsworth Longfellow has a poem published in a newspaper in his home town of Portland, Maine

1820 Ruslan and Ludmilla
Russian poet Alexander Pushkin publishes his first long poem, Ruslan and Ludmilla

1823 A Visit from St Nicholas
An American poem, A Visit from St Nicholas, describes in every detail the modern Santa Claus

1829 Poe's Al Aaraaf
20-year-old Edgar Allan Poe publishes Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems

1830 Old Ironsides saved by a poem
Oliver Wendell Holmes' poem 'Old Ironsides' prompts a public response that saves the frigate from the scrapyard

1831 America is sung at Fourth of July meeting
Samuel Francis Smith's patriotic hymn America is sung for the first time on July 4 in Boston

1831 The Last Leaf
Oliver Wendell Holmes' poem The Last Leaf is inspired by an aged survivor of the Boston Tea Party

1832 Full but posthumous Faust
The full text of Goethe's Faust, Parts 1 and 2, is published a few months after the poet's death

1833 Eugene Onegin
Alexander Pushkin publishes a novel in verse, Eugene Onegin

1841 Longfellow's Ballads and Other Poems
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Ballads and Other Poems includes 'The Village Blacksmith' and 'The Wreck of the Hesperus'

1842 Pied Piper of Hamelin
English poet Robert Browning publishes a vivid narrative poem about the terrible revenge of The Pied Piper of Hamelin

1842 Lays of Ancient Rome
English author Thomas Babington Macaulay publishes a collection of stirring ballads, Lays of Ancient Rome

1845 Poe's 'The Raven'
Edgar Allan Poe publishes The Raven and Other Poems

1846 Bronte sisters publish poems
The three Brontë sisters jointly publish a volume of their poems and sell just two copies

1847 Emerson's Poems
Ralph Waldo Emerson publishes his first collection of poems, many of which have appeared first in The Dial

1850 In Memoriam
Alfred Tennyson's elegy for a friend, In Memoriam, captures perfectly the Victorian mood of heightened sensibility

1854 Charge of the Light Brigade
Within six weeks of the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimea, Tennyson publishes a poem finding heroism in the disaster

1855 First edition of Leaves of Grass
The first edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass is published anonymously, at his own expense, and contains just 12 poems

1855 The Song of Hiawatha
Longfellow publishes his American Indian epic, The Song of Hiawatha, in an irresistibly catchy metre

1855 Tennyson's Maud
Tennyson publishes a long narrative poem, Maud, a section of which ('Come into the garden, Maud') becomes famous as a song

1857 Les Fleurs du Mal
Charles Baudelaire publishes his first and extremely influential collection of poems, Les Fleurs du Mal

1858 The Courtship of Miles Standish
Longfellow uses a romantic story of early New England for his narrative poem The Courtship of Miles Standish

1859 Tennyson's Idylls of the King
Tennyson publishes the first part of Idylls of the King, a series of linked poems about Britain's mythical king Arthur

1859 Omar Khayyám
Edward FitzGerald publishes The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, romantic translations of the work of the Persian poet

1861 Paul Revere's Ride
Longfellow's narrative poem Paul Revere's Ride dramatizes a turning point at the start of the American Revolution

1862 Battle Hymn of the Republic
Julia Ward Howe publishes The Battle Hymn of the Republic, inspired by a visit to Union troops in the American Civil War

1866 Whitman's O Captain! My Captain!
Walt Whitman laments the assassinated President Lincoln in his poem 'O Captain! My Captain!', published in Sequel to Drum-Taps

1866 Swinburn's Poems and Ballads
Algernon Swinburne scandalizes Victorian Britain with his first collection, Poems and Ballads

1867 Verlaine's Poémes saturniens
French author Paul Verlaine wins a reputation with his first published collection, Poémes saturniens ('Saturnine Poems')

1867 First collection of 'Negro Spirituals'
The first collection of 'Negro Spirituals' is published in book form in the US as Slave Songs of the United States

1870 Rimbaud sends poems to Verlaine
16-year-old Arthur Rimbaud sends some of his poems to Paul Verlaine, already an established poet

1870 The Heathen Chinee
Bret Harte's comic ballad Plain Language from Truthful James acquires a popular alternative title, The Heathen Chinee

1876 Centennial Leaves of Grass
In 21 years Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass has grown from 12 poems to the two volumes of the sixth edition, published in the USA's centenary year

1876 Hopkins' 'sprung rhythm'
English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins develops a new verse form that he calls 'sprung rhythm'

1876 Hunting of the Snark
Lewis Carroll publishes The Hunting of the Snark, a poem about a voyage in search of an elusive mythical creature

1884 Verlaine's Poètes maudits
Verlaine publishes Les Poètes maudits, short studies of various 'cursed poets' – including Rimbaud

1889 Yeats's first book of poetry
23-year-old Irish author William Butler Yeats publishes his first volume of poems, The Wanderings of Oisin

1890 Emily Dickinson published posthumously
Poems is the first of six collections of Emily Dickinson's poetry, found among her papers on her death and published posthumously

1891 Highland Association supports Scottish Gaelic
A Gaelic pressure group, the Highland Association, is founded to preserve the indigenous poetry and music of Scotland

1892 Whitman's final Leaves of Grass
Leaves of Grass, still growing, is published in its ninth edition in the year of Walt Whitman's death

1896 Tilbury Town makes its first appearance
The prolific US poet Edwin Arlington Robinson publishes The Torrent and the Night Before, his first poems about the fictional Tilbury Town

1896 Shropshire Lad
English poet A.E. Housman publishes his first collection, A Shropshire Lad

1902 'Sea Fever'
John Masefield's poem 'Sea Fever' is published in Salt-Water Ballads

1904 Cavafy prints his first poems
Constantine Cavafy prints fourteen of his poems in a pamphlet for private distribution

1908 Pound's A Lume Spento
Ezra Pound's first book of poems, A Lume Spento, is published in Italy

1910 Masefield's Cargoes
In his poem Cargoes John Masefield compares a 'dirty British coaster' with two romantic boats from the past

1910 Cavafy prints some more poems
Constantine Cavafy prints a few more of his poems to add to the fourteen privately printed in 1904

1910 Kipling's If
Rudyard Kipling publishes If, which rapidly becomes his most popular poem among the British

1911 Rupert Brooke's Poems
Rupert Brooke publishes Poems, the only collection to appear before his early death in World War I

1912 Tagore's Gitanjali
Rabindranath Tagore publishes a collection of his Bengali poems in Gitanjali

1912 Akhmatova's first collection
The Russian poet Anna Akhmatova publishes Evening, her first collection of poems

1912 Millay's Renascence
Renascence is the title poem in college student Edna St Vincent Millay's first published collection

1912 De la Mare's The Listeners
Walter De la Mare establishes his reputation with the title poem of his collection The Listeners

1913 Robert Frost's first book
US poet Robert Frost publishes his first book of poems, A Boy's Will

1913 Osip Mandelstam's Stone
The Russian poet Osip Mandelstam publishes his first collection, Stone

1914 Mistral's Sonetos de la muerte
The Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral makes her name with her first collection, Sonetos de la muerte

1914 Robert Frost's 'Mending Wall'
The poem 'Mending Wall' features in Robert Frost's collection North of Boston

1914 Sword Blades and Poppy Seed
The American writer Amy Lowell publishes an Imagist collection of poems, Sword Blades and Poppy Seed

1914 Sandburg's 'Chicago'
The Swedish-American poet Carl Sandburg makes his name with 'Chicago', published in the magazine Poetry

1915 'In Flanders Fields'
Canadian army surgeon John McCrae writes 'In Flanders Fields' after a friend is killed in the trenches

1915 Australia's Sentimental Bloke
Australian author C.J. Dennis creates the Sentimental Bloke, featuring first in a book of poems and four years later in a film

1915 Mayakovsky's A Cloud in Trousers
The Russian poet and dramatist Vladimir Mayakovsky publishes his first major long poem, A Cloud in Trousers

1915 Spoon River Anthology
Edgar Lee Masters makes his name as a poet with the publication of Spoon River Anthology

1915 Brooke's 1914 and other Poems
Rupert Brooke's 1914 and Other Poems is published a few months after his death in Greece

1916 Robert Frost's 'Birches'
'Earth's the right place for love' in Robert Frost's 'Birches', included in his collection Mountain Interval

1916 Graves Over the Brazier
Robert Graves publishes his first book of poems, Over the Brazier

1916 H.D.'s Sea Garden
The Imagist poet H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) publishes her first collection, Sea Garden

1917 Wilfred Owen invalided home
Wounded at the front on the Somme, the poet Wilfred Owen is invalided home to Britain

1917 Valéry's La Jeune Parque
Paul Valéry wins praise for his long symbolic poem La Jeune Parque

1918 Aleksandr Blok's The Twelve
In Alexander Blok's poem The Twelve, Christ leads his apostles in support of Russia's revolution

1918 Wilfred Owen killed
Wilfred Owen, having returned to the front, is killed by machine-gun fire a week before the end of the war

1919 Quia Pauper Amavi
Quia Pauper Amavi contains the first three of Ezra Pound's eventually more than 100 cantos

1920 Hugh Selwyn Mauberley
Ezra Pound publishes Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, a poem that reflects on the practice of poetry itself

1921 Marianne Moore's Poems
Marianne Moore calls her first published collection simply Poems

1922 Ulysses published in Paris
James Joyce's novel Ulysses is published in Paris, by Sylvia Beach, because of censorship problems elsewhere

1922 Tsvetaeva's Encampment of the Swans
Marina Tsvetaeva completes an anti-Soviet cycle of poems, The Encampment of the Swans

1922 Pasternak's My Sister Life
Boris Pasternak makes his name with his third volume of poems, My Sister Life

1922 The Forsyte Saga
John Galsworthy publishes his novels about the Forsyte family as a joint collection under the title The Forsyte Saga

1922 The Waste Land
American-born poet T.S. Eliot publishes The Waste Land, an extremely influential poem in five fragmented sections

1922 Valéry's 'Cimetière marin'
Valéry's collection Charmes includes probably his best-known poem, 'Le Cimetière marin'

1923 Borges' first collection
Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges publishes his first collection of poems, Fervor de Buenos Aires ('Fervour of Buenos Aires')

1923 Wallace Stevens' Harmonium
Wallace Stevens' first collection, Harmonium, sells 100 copies

1923 Frost's New Hampshire
Robert Frost publishes a new collection of poems, New Hampshire

1923 e.e. cummings first collection
The US poet e.e. cummings publishes his first collection, Tulips and Chimneys

1923 Millay's The Harp-Weaver
US poet Edna St Vincent Millay publishes The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems

1923 Rilke's Elegies and Sonnets
Rainer Maria Rilke publishes his Duino Elegies and his Sonnets to Orpheus

1924 Tamar and Other Poems
US poet Robinson Jeffers publishes his first successful collection, Tamar and Other Poems

1924 Neruda's Twenty Love Poems
20-year-old Chilean poet Pablo Neruda publishes one of his best-known collections, Twenty Love Poems

1924 The Man Who Died Twice
US poet E.A. Robinson publishes a narrative poem, The Man Who Died Twice, about the dissipation of artistic talent

1925 Montale's Bones of the Cuttlefish
Italian poet Eugenio Montale publishes his first collection, Bones of the Cuttlefish

1926 A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle
Hugh MacDiarmid writes his long poem A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle in a revived version of the Lallans dialect of the Scottish borders

1926 Dorothy Parker's Enough Rope
Dorothy Parker has a best-seller with her first collection of verse, Enough Rope

1928 'Sailing to Byzantium'
W.B. Yeats's new volume of poems, The Tower, includes 'Sailing to Byzantium'

1928 Benét publishes John Brown's Body
Stephen V. Benét publishes a verse narrative of the Civil War under the title John Brown's Body

1928 Lorca's Gypsy Ballads
García Lorca wins fame with his book of poems Gypsy Ballads

1929 Macneice's Blind Fireworks
Blind Fireworks is Ulster writer Louis MacNeice's first collection of poems

1930 Auden's Poems
English author W.H. Auden's first collection of poetry is published with the simple title Poems

1931 Ogden Nash's first volume
The US poet Ogden Nash has an immediate success with his first volume of poems, Hard Lines

1932 MacLeish's Conquistador,
US poet Archibald MacLeish publishes a narrative epic, Conquistador, about the conquest of Mexico

1933 Neruda's Residencia en la tierra
Pablo Neruda increases his international reputation with a collection of surrealist poems, Residencia en la tierra ('Residence on earth')

1933 The Pylon poets
The Pylon group of British poets get their name from Stephen Spender's poem 'The Pylons'

1933 Octavio Paz's Wild Moon
19-year-old Mexican poet Octavio Paz publishes his first collection, Wild Moon

1935 Cavafy's poems are published
A collection of Constantine Cavafy's poems is published in Alexandria in an undated edition

1938 In Dreams Begin Responsibilities
Delmore Schwartz publishes his first book of poems, In Dreams Begin Responsibilities

1939 Old Possum celebrates practical cats
T.S. Eliot gives cats a poetic character in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

1942 Ezra Pound broadcasts propaganda
US poet Ezra Pound, in Italy during the war, broadcasts Fascist propaganda aimed at the United States

1942 Blood for a Stranger
US poet Randall Jarrell publishes his first collection, Blood for a Stranger

1944 Robert Lowell's first collection
Boston writer Robert Lowell publishes his first book of poems, Land of Unlikeness

1944 Four Quartets
The separate poems forming T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets are brought together for the first time as a single volume, published in New York

1946 Lord Weary's Castle
Robert Lowell's second collection, Lord Weary's Castle, contains 'The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket' and 'Mr Edwards and the Spider'

1946 Ezra Pound 'criminally insane'
Ezra Pound, charged with treason for his wartime broadcasts, begins twelve years in a US hospital for the criminally insane

1946 Elizabeth Bishop's North and South
US poet Elizabeth Bishop publishes her first collection of poems, North and South

1948 Roethke's The Lost Son
US poet Theodore Roethke publishes The Lost Son, his second collection

1948 Pisan Cantos
Ezra Pound publishes Pisan Cantos, about his postwar imprisonment in an American detention centre near Pisa

1948 Beat Generation
US novelist and poet Jack Kerouac coins a term for his contemporaries, the Beat Generation

1949 Annie Allen
Annie Allen, by US author Gwendolyn Brooks, describes in narrative verse the life of a black girl in contemporary USA

1950 Neruda's Canto general
The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda publishes his epic account of South America and its people, Canto general

1953 Go Tell It on the Mountain
US author James Baldwin publishes his first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, set in Harlem

1955 Larkin's The Less Deceived
English poet Philip Larkin finds his distinctive voice in his collection The Less Deceived

1956 Hughes and Plath marry
English poet Ted Hughes marries US poet Sylvia Plath

1956 Ginsberg's Howl
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is prosecuted and acquitted for publishing Allen Ginsberg's Howl

1957 The Hawk in the Rain
The Hawk in the Rain is English author Ted Hughes' first volume of poems

1957 Not Waving but Drowning
English author Stevie Smith publishes her collection of poems Not Waving but Drowning

1960 Plath's Colossus
The Colossus is US author Sylvia Plath's first collection of poems

1960 Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail
Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail is the first of many collections of poems by US poet Charles Bukowski

1960 Summoned by Bells
English poet John Betjeman publishes his long autobiographical poem Summoned by Bells

1960 The Sot-Weed Factor
US novelist John Barth publishes The Sot-Weed Factor, a picaresque life of Edmund Cook set on a family tobacco plantation in Maryland

1961 Yevtushenko's Babi Yar
In Babi Yar the dissident Soviet poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko tackles the subject of Russian anti-Semitism

1962 Baldwin's Another Country
James Baldwin's third novel Another Country explores the conflicts in the life of a young unemployed black musician

1962 John Ashbery's The Tennis Court Oath
John Ashbery's radical collection The Tennis Court Oath includes poems composed of sliced up fragments

1962 Britten's War Requiem
Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, setting poems by Wilfred Owen, is first performed in the rebuilt Coventry Cathedral

1963 Larkin dates sexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse begins in this year, according to Philip Larkin's 1974 poem Annus Mirabilis

1964 77 Dream Songs
US poet John Berryman's 77 Dream Songs introduce Henry, his alter ego

1964 For the Union Dead
Robert Lowell's For the Union Dead takes its title from the last poem, about modern disregard for a Civil War monument

1964 The Eye of the Hurricane
New Zealand poet Fleur Adcock publishes her first collection, The Eye of the Hurricane

1965 Jarrell's The Lost World
US author Randall Jarrell's poem The Lost World provides the title for his last published book

1966 Death of a Naturalist
Irish poet Seamus Heaney wins critical acclaim for Death of a Naturalist, his first volume containing more than a few poems

1967 Anne Sexton's Live or Die
US poet Anne Sexton publishes Live or Die, a collection containing a poem to her dead friend Sylvia Plath

1967 The Mersey Sound
Three young Liverpool poets publish a shared anthology under the title The Mersey Sound

1968 Pound's final cantos
Ezra Pound publishes his last collection of cantos, Drafts and Fragments of Cantos CX - CXVII

1970 Bicycle and Other Poems
Australian author David Malouf is first published as a poet, with his collection Bicycle and Other Poems

1972 James Fenton Terminal Moraine
English poet James Fenton publishes his first collection, Terminal Moraine

1978 Andrew Motion's The Pleasure Steamers
English author Andrew Motion publishes his first collection of poems, The Pleasure Steamers

1981 War Music
War Music is the first instalment of Christopher Logue's version of the Iliad

1984 Pinsky's Inferno
US poet Robert Pinsky publishes an acclaimed verse translation, The Inferno of Dante

1985 Zephaniah's Dread Affair
British Rasta poet Benjamin Zephaniah publishes his second collection as The Dread Affair

1987 Partingtime Hall
English poets John Fuller and James Fenton collaborate in a volume of satirical poems, Partingtime Hall

1990 Walcott's Omeros
West Indian author Derek Walcott publishes Omeros, an epic poem of the Caribbean

1992 The Man with Night Sweats
English poet Thom Gunn's The Man with Night Sweats deals openly with AIDS

1993 A.R. Ammons' Garbage
US author A.R. Ammons publishes a book-length poem, Garbage, typed on narrow strips of adding-machine paper

1995 Philip Levine's Simple Truth
US poet Philip Levine wins a Pulitzer Prize with his volume of poems Simple Truth

1997 Hughes's Birthday Letters
The poems forming Ted Hughes's Birthday Letters describe his relationship with Sylvia Plath

1999 Heaney's Beowulf
A translation by Irish author Seamus Heaney brings many new readers to the Old English poem Beowulf