A Timeline of African American poets published in Poetry Magazine

The following years and months mark appearances of works by African American poets in Poetry magazine.  At the moment, this timeline is a work in progress, and thus incomplete.

1918: Fenton Johnson's "The Lost Love," ""How Long, O Lord!," "Who Is That A-Walking in the Corn?,"

1925 July: Countee Cullen's "Epitaphs"

1926 January: Countee Cullen's "For Amy Lowell"

1926 November: Langston Hughes's Blues selections: "Hard Luck," "Po Boy Blues," "Red Roses," "Suicide"

1931 October: Langston Hughes's The Quick and the Dead (selection of poems)

1937 November: Margaret Walker's "For My People"

1938 July: Margaret Walker's "The Struggle Staggers Us"

1938 July: Sterling Brown's "The Young Ones"

1939 March: Margaret Walker's "We Have Been Believers"

1940 April: Langston Hughes Two Poems: "Out of Work," "Love Again Blues"

1941 May: Langston Hughes Four poems: "Dust Bowl," "Southern Mammy Sings," "Crossing Jordan," "Black Maria"

1943 July: Robert Hayden's "O Daedalus, Fly Away Home"

1943 September: Langston Hughes Four poems: "Folks who Knock at Madam's Door,"Crowing Hen Blues"

1944 November: Gwendolyn Brooks Two poems: "Gay Chaps at the Bar" and "Still Do I Keep My Look, My Identity"

1947 February: Langston Hughes's Four poems: "Seashore Through Dark Glasses," "Blues on a Box," "Who but the Lord?," "Yesterday and Today"

1949 March: Gwendolyn Brooks's "Children of the Poor," "A Light and Diplomatic Bird"

1950 July: Melvin B. Tolson's "From Libretto for the Republic of Liberia"

1951 September: Melvin B. Tolson's "E. & O. E."

1952 October: Melvin B. Tolson's "The Man from Halicarnassus"

1959 September: Gwendolyn Brooks's The Bean Eaters suite: "Old Mary," "We Real Cool," "Strong Men, Riding Horses," "The Bean Eaters"

1961 August: Langston Hughes's "Blues in a Stereo"

1962 April: Amiri Baraka's "Balboa, the Entertainer"

1964 December: Amiri Baraka's "Like Rousseau"

1969 October: Calvin Forbes's "Poem on My Birthday"

1969 November: Gwendolyn Brooks's "Henry Rago"

1970 June: Calvin Forbes's "The Chocolate Soldiers," "Good Morning Blues," "Gabriel's Blues"

1982 October: Rita Dove's "Flirtation" 

1984 September: Rita Dove's "Pomade," "The Wake"

1985 October: Rita Dove's "Old Folk's Home, Jerusalem"

1988 June: Rita Dove's "Ars Poetica"

1989 January: Rita Dove's "The Breathing, the Endless News"

1992 April: Elizabeth Alexander's "Stravinsky in L.A.," "Cough Medicine," "Apollo"

1992 October: Rita Dove's "Demeter's Prayer to Hades," "Sonnet," "Protection" "The Venus of Willendorf"

1993 September: Elizabet Alexander's "Manhattan Elegy," "Equinox"

1993 September: Kevin Young's "The Living"

1994 February: Elizabeth Alexander's "L.A. by Night," "At the Beach"

1995 May: Rita Dove's "Her Island"

1998 January: Rita Dove's "Testimonial"

2002 October: Rita Dove's "'I have been a stranger in a strange land'"

2003 March: Rita Dove's "Reverie in Open Air," "Cozy Apologia"

2004 May: Kevin Young's "Early Show"

2006 March: Major Jackson's "Letter to Brooks: Spring Garden"

2007 March: Afaa Michael Weaver's "American Income"

2007 July/August: Kevin Young's "Ode to the Midwest"

2007 September: Lucille Clifton's "Sorrows"

2007 November: Kevin Young's "from Book of Hours"

2008 March: Terrance Hayes's "Stick Elegy," "New Folk," "Mystic Bounce," "Cocktails with Orpheus"

2008 December: Roger Reeves's "Cymothoa Exigua" and "The Mare of Money"
 
2009 January: Langston Hughes's "You and your whole race," "Remember," "I Look at the World"

2009 October: Kevin Young's "The Mission"

2011 July/August: Calvin Forbes's "Talking Blues" and "Mamma Said" 

2011 July/August: Nikki Giovanni's "Chasing Utopia"(story)

2011 September: Kevin Young's "Pietà"
 
2011 September: Reginald Dwayne Betts's “For you: anthophilous, lover of flowers”

2011 November: Marcus Wicker "Animal Farm," "Bay Window Lauds," "The Way We Were Made"

2011 December: Camille Dungy's "From the First, the Body Was Dirt"

2012 June: Rita Dove's "November for Beginners," "Dusting"

2012 July/August: Adrian Matejka's "Map to the Stars" and "End of Side A"

2012 November: Reginald Dwayne Betts's "A Postmodern Two-Step," "At the End of Life, a Secret," "For the City that Nearly Broke Me;" Rickey Laurentiis's "Southern Gothic," "Swing Low," "You Are Not Christ."

2013 May: Amiri Baraka's "A Post-Racial Anthology?" (Review)

2013 November: Phillip B. Williams's "Homan and Chicago Avenue," "Do-rag," "Of Darker Ceremonies," "Speak"

2013 October: Marcus Wicker's "Ode to Browsing the Web"

2013 November: Harmony Holiday "Do any black children grow up casual?,""Gazelle Lost in Watts," "Motown Philly Back Again," "Niggas in Raincoats Reprise"

2013 December: Douglas Kearney's "Kronos: Father of the Year," "Noah / Ham: Fathers of the Year," "Every Hard Rapper's Father Ever: Father of the Year," "Jim Trueblood: Father of the Year"

2014 July/August: Rickey Laurentiis's "Black Gentleman," "I Saw I Dreamt Two Men," "Study in Black," "Writing an Elegy"

Related:
• Poetry &the Poetry Foundation Site  
• Timelines