The New York School was an unofficial group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s and 1960s in New York City.

They often drew inspiration from surrealism and the contemporary avant-garde art movements.

Concerning the New York School poets, critics argued that their work was a response to the Confessionalist movement in Contemporary Poetry.

Their poetic subject matter was often light, violent, or observational, while their writing style was often interpreted as cosmopolitan and world-traveled.

They wrote with spontaneity or used the stream of consciousness method. The New York School of poets is often organized into two generations: the first was centered around a core group of five poets: John Ashbery, Barbara Guest, James Schuyler, Kenneth Koch, and Frank O’Hara. The second generation included poets Alice Notley and her husband, Ted Berrigan; Bill Berkson; and Ron Padgett. During the second generation, members founded nonacademic learning centers that served local communities, such as the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church.

Source: The Wikipedia and Poetry Foundation.