Her husband was an accomplished artist and author of many published novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction works relating to the Mexican haciendas.

For many years Elizabeth Bartlett lived in numerous areas of Mexico while she dedicated herself to poetry and her husband undertook a lifelong extensive art and photographic study of more than 350 haciendas throughout the country.

She served as Director of the Creative Writers Association of the New School for Social Research (1955), as Consultant for Theatre Atlanta, as visiting poet at universities in Canada, California, Florida, and Texas, and as Poetry Editor for ETC: A Review of General Semantics and for Crosscurrents.

After purchasing a house in Comala, Mexico, her husband's health failed in 1976 and they settled in San Diego where Bartlett continued to work, give poetry readings, and teach until her death in 1994.

Called "the Emily Dickinson of the 20th Century" by Chad Walsh, distinguished poet and writer, in The Saturday Review,[8][9] Elizabeth Bartlett's concise lyrics have been praised by Allen Tate, William Stafford, Ted Weiss, Maxine Kumin, Josephine Jacobsen, and Robert M. Hutchins, among others, and commended by musicians and composers.

"[9] Encouraged by this and other commendatory responses to her twelve-tone poems by poets, musicians, and composers including Stephen Sondheim,[9] Bartlett continued to develop the new form.

"[15] A third collection of twelve-tone poems, In Search of Identity, was published in 1977,[16] further establishing the diversity and versatility of ways in which Bartlett was able to make use of the new form.

[17] In her mission to bring the work of leading poets to public awareness, Bartlett founded the international non-profit organization, Literary Olympics, Inc. Like Marianne Moore, "Bartlett ... [was] a member of that small group of men and women who, during this century, have furthered the art of others at no small cost to themselves in time, money and sleepless nights.

People such as Harriet Monroe, whose small journal Poetry furthered the careers of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot; Sylvia Beach, owner of the Paris bookstore Shakespeare and Company, who championed James Joyce in the face of the most rabid censors; Edward Marsh, the much-pilloried editor of the Georgian Poetry anthologies; and others.

"[11] Until her death in 1994, Elizabeth Bartlett devoted twelve years to this project whose goal was to reinstate the role of literature, and specifically of poetry, in the Olympic Games as originally implemented by the Greeks.

She coordinated and directed the work of associate editors in Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, East, North, and West Europe, Great Britain, Latin America, and the United States.

The first Literary Olympics poetry anthology was published in 1984 to coincide with the Games of the XXIII Olympiad held in Los Angeles, and included the work of poets from nine countries.

[21] These anthologies shared the intent to recognize and to honor the creative work of the world's leading poets in a way that was true to the original spirit of the Greek Olympic Games.

Bartlett's poetry came to the attention of leading poets, writers, and critics as diverse as Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, Mark Van Doren, Conrad Aiken, Allen Tate, Alfred Kreymborg, Robert Hillyer, Louis Untermeyer, Rolfe Humphries, John Ciardi, Richard Eberhart, Richard Wilbur, Maxine Kumin, Robert M. Hutchins, Kenneth Rexroth, William Stafford, and others.

[25] For the book cover, Marianne Moore offered this comment: "The poems are the result of a discipline that assuredly justifies the writer, and should console the right readers (if anything can).

"[26] Praising the same book, Mark Van Doren wrote: "These poems are clear, swift, and strong; and witty, too, in the best sense of that word.

"[9] Also in 1977, Bartlett's one-act play in verse, Dialogue of Dust, was published,[28] and then recorded by the Fairhaven Radio Theatre in Bellingham, Washington.

In 1979, Dufour Editions, distinguished for its publication of leading British and European writers, published Bartlett's volume of poems, Address in Time.

"[32] Bartlett had showed the form to be adaptable for single lyrics, multi-part poems, narratives, group sequences, dramatic compositions, chorales, elegies, and odes.

[36] Maxine Kumin commended the book with these words: "Elizabeth Bartlett enumerates the eternal questions that preoccupy us 'while we try to sleep / on the rough floor of our hearts.'

The Olympic Games in ancient Greece had honored outstanding athletes, but also recognized poets for excellence of mind and literary talent.

She directed the work of internationally distinguished associate editors located in Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, East, North, and West Europe, Great Britain, Latin America, and the United States.

[9] Through Bartlett's leadership and editorial effort, beginning in 1984 three international anthologies of poetry were published in conjunction with the Olympics, and included the work of eminent contemporary poets, including Yehuda Amichai, Thorkild Bjørnvig, Eavan Boland, Czesław Miłosz, Odysseas Elytis, Oscar Gonzáles, Yannis Ritsos, Ewald Osers, Zbigniew Herbert, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Octavio Paz, Eugénio de Andrade, among others.

[19] Literary Olympians II included poetry from 34 countries and was published in conjunction with the 1988 Olympic Games held in Seoul, Korea.

[21] In all the Literary Olympics anthologies, the poetry was published in the original languages in which it was written, accompanied by facing-page professional translations into English.

An impressive group of Nobel Laureates contributed to the project, including Vicente Aleixandre, Saul Bellow, Odysseas Elytis, Czesław Miłosz, Eugenio Montale, Octavio Paz, and Jaroslav Seifert.

[9] At the time of Bartlett's death in 1994, she was nearing the completion of the fourth international anthology to be published to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the modern Olympic Games to be held in 1996 in Atlanta.

Prof. Dasha Čulić Nisula of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Western Michigan University agreed to complete the editorial task for this international collection.

At the end of the one hundred-year term, the initial funding will have grown by compounding to provide for a self-perpetuating endowment to make it possible to continue to honor outstanding international contributions to poetry.

[9] Bartlett's prolific output also includes as yet unpublished manuscripts of books, narrative and other poems, short stories, plays, ballet scripts, and essays.