Founded in 1912, shortly after the establishment of the Society, previous editors have included poets Muriel Spark, Adrian Henri, Andrew Motion and Maurice Riordan.

"We should look forward as well as backward," Kyle stated, "but in reality the latter is more necessary than the former, and it is particularly essential in relation to a poet who may find the times too noisy, too self-centred and too self-righteous to heed him".

During both world wars Kyle paid particular attention to people serving in the armed forces, publishing their work and letters, interested in eye-witness accounts.

A series of guest editors followed—George Szirtes, Charles Boyle, Bernardine Evaristo, Moniza Alvi, Esther Morgan and Patrick McGuinness—until Summer 2013, when Maurice Riordan assumed the editorship for the next four years.

It has published the work of poets including Thomas Hardy, Rupert Brooke, Robert Frost, W. H. Auden, Ezra Pound, Philip Larkin and Allen Ginsberg.