Lifespan development in the academy of American poets

The present study investigated lifespan writing tendencies among members of the Academy of American Poets (N = 411). All original English language poems (N = 2,558) available on the Academy website during 2013 were included provided that each poet was represented by at least two poems. Correlations of the age in which each poet published each poem with established indicators of lifespan development were small to moderate (r’s from -.11 to .16). Contrary to lifespan development for expository and emotionally expressive writing, poets tended to employ past tense and use less emotionally valenced language as they aged. Multilevel analysis revealed no significant relationships between publishing age and maturation outcomes, although that process did indicate various curvilinear relations. I conclude by discussing the implications of automated text analysis on literary analysis of career development.