Literary Chronology

1644:     Matsuo Bashō is born.

1686:     Matsuo Bashō's "Temple Bells Die Out" is published.

1694:     Matsuo Bashō dies of a stomach ailment in the summer.

c. 1775:     Ho Xuan Huong is believed to have been born sometime between 1775 and 1780, in a village near present-day Hanoi, North Vietnam.

c. 1820:     Ho Xuan Huong dies sometime around 1820.

1840:     Thomas Hardy is born on June 2 in Higher Bockhampton, Dorset, England.

1861:     Rabindranath Tagore is born on May 7 in Calcutta, India.

1888:     Anna Akhmatova is born on June 23 in the Russian town of Bolshoy Fontan, near the resort town Odessa.

1893:     Dorothy Rothschild Parker is born August 22 in West End, New Jersey.

1900:     Thomas Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush" is published.

1909:     Ho Xuan Huong's "Spring-Watching Pavilion" is published.

1912:     Rabindranath Tagore's "60" is published.

1913:     Rabindranath Tagore is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

1914:     Octavio Paz is born March 31 in Mexico City.

1925:     Maxine Kumin is born on June 6 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1925:     Carolyn Kizer is born December 10 in Spokane, Washington.

1928:     Thomas Hardy dies January 11 in Dorchester, Dorset, England

1928:     Dorothy Parker's "The Last Question" is published.

1934:     Mark Strand is born April 11 in Summerside on Prince Edward Island, Canada.

1940:     Pattiann Rogers is born on March 23 in Joplin, Missouri.

1940:     Robert Pinsky is born on October 20 in Long Branch, New Jersey.

1941:     Billy Collins is born on March 22 in New York City.

1941:     Rabindranath Tagore dies August 7 in Calcutta, West Bengal, India.

1949:     Agha Shahid Ali is born on February 4 in New Delhi, India.

1950:     Carolyn Forché is born on April 28 in Detroit, Michigan.

1950:     Anne Carson is born on June 21 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

1962:     Octavio Paz's "Duration" is published.

1965:     Anna Akhmatova's "Midnight Verses" is published.

1966:     Anna Akhmatova dies on March 5 in Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Russia.

1967:     Dorothy Parker dies on June 7.

1978:     Maxine Kumin's "Address to the Angels" is published.

1984:     Robert Pinsky's "Song of Reasons" is published.

1986:     Carolyn Kizer's "To an Unknown Poet" is published.

1988:     Carolyn Forché's "The Garden Shukkei-en" is published.

1990:     Mark Strand's "The Continuous Life" is published.

1991:     Billy Collins's "The Afterlife" is published.

1991:     Octavio Paz is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

1993:     Pattiann Rogers's "The Greatest Grandeur" is published.

1997:     Agha Shahid Ali's "The Country Without a Post Office" is published.

1998:     Octavio Paz dies of cancer on April 19 in Mexico City.

2000:     Anne Carson's "New Rule" is published.

2001:     Agha Shahid Ali dies of brain cancer on December 8.