 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 United States, Britain, and beyond including Stanley Kunitz, Thom Gunn, Philip Larkin, May Swenson, Theodore Roethke, John Berryman, Czesław Miłosz, Harold Pinter, Joyce Carol Oates, Raymond Carver, Robert Pinsky, Annie Dillard, Richard Wilbur, Jorie Graham, Michael S. Harper, James Dickey, Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry 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.