In 1966, Bly co-founded American Writers Against the Vietnam War. In 1968, he signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the war. When he won the National Book Award for "The Light Around the Body," he contributed the prize money to the Resistance. During the 1970s, he published eleven books of poetry, essays, and translations. During the 1980s he published "Loving a Woman in Two Worlds," "The Wingéd Life: Selected Poems and Prose of Thoreau," "The Man in the Black Coat Turns," and "A Little Book on the Human Shadow".