A History of Poetry Northwest

1959-2002

Poetry Northwest was founded as a quarterly, poetry-only journal in 1959 by Errol Pritchard, with Carolyn Kizer, Richard Hugo, and Nelson Bentley as co-editors. The first issue was 28 pages and included the work of Philip Larkin, James Wright, and William Stafford.

During the magazine’s four decades, it gained an international reputation for publishing some of the best poetry by established and up-and-coming poets in the U.S, Britain, and beyond including: Stanley Kunitz, Thom Gunn, Phillip Larkin, May Swenson, Theodore Roethke, Hayden Carruth, W.S. Merwin, John Berryman, Czeslaw Milosz, Philip Levine, and Anne Sexton.

In 1963, Poetry Northwest became a publication of the University of Washington. In 1964, Kizer became the sole editor of the magazine and would hold that post until 1966 when she resigned to become the Literature Director at the National Endowment for the Arts. David Wagoner assumed the role of editor, a position he would hold for 36 years.

Other writers who have published poetry in Poetry Northwest include Harold Pinter, Joyce Carol Oates, Annie Dillard, Raymond Carver, James Welch, Ted Kooser, James Dickey, Robert Pinsky, Richard Wilbur, Wendell Berry, Charles Baxter, Mary Oliver, Edward Hirsch, Stanley Plumly, Linda Pastan, Stephen Dobyns, Stephen Dunn, Jorie Graham, Michael Harper, and Mark Strand.

In 2002, after several years of dire financial circumstances, Poetry Northwest — at the time one of the longest-running poetry-only publications in the country — temporarily ceased publication.

Since 2005

In August 2005, the University of Washington appointed David Biespiel editor of Poetry Northwest, with the agreement that the editorial offices of the magazine would relocate to The Attic Writers’ Workshop in Portland, Oregon. The new series resumed publication in March 2006.

"Now a semi-annual," says editor David Biespiel, "our mission remains what it has been for over four decades. In the words of founding editor Carolyn Kizer, 'We shall continue to encourage the young and the inexperienced, the neglected mature, and the rough major talents and the fragile minor ones.'"