1950 in poetry
Encyclopedia
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish
Irish poetry
The history of Irish poetry includes the poetries of two languages, one in Irish and the other in English. The complex interplay between these two traditions, and between both of them and other poetries in English, has produced a body of work that is both rich in variety and difficult to...

 or France
French poetry
French poetry is a category of French literature. It may include Francophone poetry composed outside France and poetry written in other languages of France.-French prosody and poetics:...

).

Events

  • Charles Olson
    Charles Olson
    Charles Olson , was a second generation American modernist poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York School, the Black Mountain School, the Beat poets, and the San Francisco Renaissance...

     publishes his seminal essay, Projective Verse. In this, he called for a poetry of "open field" composition to replace traditional closed poetic forms with an improvised form that should reflect exactly the content of the poem. This form was to be based on the line, and each line was to be a unit of breath and of utterance. The content was to consist of "one perception immediately and directly (leading) to a further perception". This essay was to become a kind of de facto manifesto for the Black Mountain poets
    Black Mountain poets
    The Black Mountain poets, sometimes called projectivist poets, were a group of mid 20th century American avant-garde or postmodern poets centered on Black Mountain College.-Background:...

    .
  • George Oppen
    George Oppen
    George Oppen was an American poet, best known as one of the members of the Objectivist group of poets. He abandoned poetry in the 1930s for political activism, and later moved to Mexico to avoid the attentions of the House Un-American Activities Committee...

     and his wife, Mary, move from the United States to Mexico, where their links to Communism are less problematic.
  • In the fall, the Beloit Poetry Journal is founded.
  • Pioneer Press founded in Jamaica
    Caribbean poetry
    Caribbean poetry is any form of poem, rhyme, or song that gets its derivatives from the Caribbean. This type of media became popular primarily in the early 1900s with the works of poets Linton Kwesi Johnson, Kamau Brathwaite, and Derek Walcott.-Origins:...

  • St. Lucia
    Caribbean poetry
    Caribbean poetry is any form of poem, rhyme, or song that gets its derivatives from the Caribbean. This type of media became popular primarily in the early 1900s with the works of poets Linton Kwesi Johnson, Kamau Brathwaite, and Derek Walcott.-Origins:...

     Arts Guild founded by Derek Walcott
    Derek Walcott
    Derek Alton Walcott, OBE OCC is a Saint Lucian poet, playwright, writer and visual artist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992 and the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2011 for White Egrets. His works include the Homeric epic Omeros...

     and Roderick Walcott

Works published in English

Listed by nation where the work was first published and again by the poet's native land, if different; substantially revised works listed separately:

Canada
Canadian poetry
- Beginnings:The earliest works of poetry, mainly written by visitors, described the new territories in optimistic terms, mainly targeted at a European audience...

  • Dorothy Livesay
    Dorothy Livesay
    Dorothy Kathleen May Livesay, was a Canadian poet who twice won the Governor General`s Award in the 1940s, and was "senior woman writer in Canada" during the 1970s and 1980s.-Life:...

    , Call My People Home, Canada
    Canadian poetry
    - Beginnings:The earliest works of poetry, mainly written by visitors, described the new territories in optimistic terms, mainly targeted at a European audience...

  • James Wreford Watson
    James Wreford Watson
    James Wreford Watson was a Scottish/Canadian geographer and cartographer, who served as Canada's Chief Geographer...

    , Of Time and the Lover (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart).

India
Indian poetry
Indian poetry, and Indian literature in general, has a long history dating back to Vedic times. They were written in various Indian languages such as Vedic Sanskrit, Classical Sanskrit, Oriya, Tamil, Kannada, Bengali and Urdu. Poetry in foreign languages such as Persian and English also have a...

, in English
Indian Poetry in English
Henry Louis Vivian Derozio is considered the first poet in the lineage of Indian English Poetry. A significant and torch bearer poet is Nissim Ezekiel and the significant poets of the post-Derozio and pre-Ezekiel times are Toru Dutt, Sarojini Naidu, Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo...

  • Sri Aurobindo
    Sri Aurobindo
    Sri Aurobindo , born Aurobindo Ghosh or Ghose , was an Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru, and poet. He joined the Indian movement for freedom from British rule and for a duration became one of its most important leaders, before developing his own vision of human progress...

    , Savitri ( Poetry in English
    English language
    English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

     ), Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram
  • R. Bhagavan, Poems ( Poetry in English
    English language
    English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

     ), the author's first book of poems, Calcutta: Writers Workshop
    Writers Workshop
    Writers Workshop is a Calcutta-based literary publisher founded by the poet-professor P. Lal in 1958. Over the next few decades it published many new authors in urban literature of the post-independence period. These authors later became big names.-History:...

    ; India
    India
    India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

     .
  • Doreen W. Wickremasinghe, editor, Poems of East & West, Colombo
    Colombo
    Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...

    : Colombo Apothecaries Co., 170 pages; anthology; Ceylon (now Sri Lanka),

New Zealand

  • Ursula Bethell, Collected Poems, Christchurch: Caxton Press (posthumous)
  • Alistair Campbell
    Alistair Campbell (poet)
    Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, ONZM was a New Zealand poet, playwright, and novelist. His father was a New Zealand Scot and his mother a Cook Island Maori from Penrhyn Island.-Biography:...

    , Mine Eyes Dazzle, Christchurch: Pegasus Press, including "The Return" and "Elegy"
  • M. K. Joseph
    M. K. Joseph
    Michael Kennedy Joseph was a British born New Zealand poet and novelist in several genres ranging from I'll Soldier No More, A Pound of Saffron and A Soldier's Tale to the science fiction works The Hole in the Zero and The Time of Achamoth to the historically-based Kaspar's Journey.-References and...

    , Imaginary Islands
  • Kendrick Smithyman
    Kendrick Smithyman
    William Kendrick Smithyman was an award-winning New Zealand poet and one of the most prolific of that nation's poets in the 20th century.-Family and early life:...

    , The Blind Mountain, Caxton
  • Hubert Witheford, The Shadow of the Flame

United Kingdom
English poetry
The history of English poetry stretches from the middle of the 7th century to the present day. Over this period, English poets have written some of the most enduring poems in Western culture, and the language and its poetry have spread around the globe. Consequently, the term English poetry is...

  • W. H. Auden
    W. H. Auden
    Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...

    , Collected Shorter Poems 1930-1944, published March 9; English poet living in the United States at this time
  • George Barker
    George Barker (poet)
    George Granville Barker was an English poet and author.-Life and work:Barker was born in Loughton, near Epping Forest in Essex, England, elder brother of Kit Barker [painter] George Barker was raised by his Irish mother and English father in Battersea, London. He was educated at an L.C.C. school...

    , The True Confession of George Barker
  • Basil Bunting
    Basil Bunting
    Basil Cheesman Bunting was a significant British modernist poet whose reputation was established with the publication of Briggflatts in 1966. He had a lifelong interest in music that led him to emphasise the sonic qualities of poetry, particularly the importance of reading poetry aloud...

    , Poems: 1950
  • Norman Cameron
    Norman Cameron
    Norman Cameron was a Scottish poet, distantly related to Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay who, between the two world wars, associated on Majorca with Robert Graves and Laura Riding. Later, as a part-time Fitzrovian, he was a colleague of Dylan Thomas, Geoffrey Grigson, Len Lye, John Aldridge RA,...

    , Forgive Me, Sire, and Other Poems
  • Walter de la Mare
    Walter de la Mare
    Walter John de la Mare , OM CH was an English poet, short story writer and novelist, probably best remembered for his works for children and the poem "The Listeners"....

    , Inward Companion, published in October
  • Robert Duncan
    Robert Duncan (poet)
    Robert Duncan was an American poet and a student of H.D. and the Western esoteric tradition who spent most of his career in and around San Francisco. Though associated with any number of literary traditions and schools, Duncan is often identified with the poets of the New American Poetry and Black...

    , The Mongrel, and Other Poems
  • David Gascoyne
    David Gascoyne
    David Gascoyne was an English poet associated with the Surrealist movement.-Early life and Surrealism:...

    , A Vagrant, and Other Poems
  • Robert Gittings
    Robert Gittings
    Robert William Victor Gittings CBE , was an English writer, biographer, BBC Radio producer, playwright and minor poet...

    , Wentworth Place.
  • John Heath-Stubbs
    John Heath-Stubbs
    John Francis Alexander Heath-Stubbs OBE was an English poet and translator, known for his verse influenced by classical myths, and the long Arthurian poem Artorius .- Biography :...

     and David Wright
    David Wright (poet)
    David John Murray Wright was an author and "an acclaimed South African-born poet".-Biography:Wright was born in Johannesburg, South Africa 23 February 1920 of normal hearing....

    , editors, The Forsaken Garden: An Anthology of Poetry 1824-1909
  • John Heath-Stubbs
    John Heath-Stubbs
    John Francis Alexander Heath-Stubbs OBE was an English poet and translator, known for his verse influenced by classical myths, and the long Arthurian poem Artorius .- Biography :...

    , The Swarming of the Bees
  • Mervyn Peake
    Mervyn Peake
    Mervyn Laurence Peake was an English writer, artist, poet and illustrator. He is best known for what are usually referred to as the Gormenghast books. They are sometimes compared to the work of his older contemporary J. R. R...

    , The Glassblowers
  • James Reeves, The Wandering Moon
  • Jon Silkin
    Jon Silkin
    Jon Silkin was a British poet.-Early life:Jon Silkin was born in London, in a Jewish immigrant family and named after Jon Forsyte in The Forsyte Saga, and attended Wycliffe College and Dulwich College During the Second World War he was one of the children evacuated from London ; he remembered that...

    , The Portrait, and Other Poems
  • Stevie Smith
    Stevie Smith
    Florence Margaret Smith, known as Stevie Smith was an English poet and novelist.-Life:Stevie Smith, born Florence Margaret Smith in Kingston upon Hull, was the second daughter of Ethel and Charles Smith. Contemporary Women Poets...

    , Harold's Leap

United States

  • W. H. Auden
    W. H. Auden
    Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...

    , Collected Shorter Poems 1930-1944 (English
    English poetry
    The history of English poetry stretches from the middle of the 7th century to the present day. Over this period, English poets have written some of the most enduring poems in Western culture, and the language and its poetry have spread around the globe. Consequently, the term English poetry is...

     poet living at this time in the United States)
  • E. E. Cummings
    E. E. Cummings
    Edward Estlin Cummings , popularly known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e.e. cummings , was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright...

    , XAIPE: 71 Poems
  • Leah Bodine Drake
    Leah Bodine Drake
    -External Links:Leah Bodine Drake papers at Kentucky Digital Library...

    , A Hornbook for Witches
    A Hornbook for Witches
    A Hornbook for Witches: Poems of Fantasy is a collection of poems by Leah Bodine Drake. It was released in 1950 and was the author's first book and her only collection published by Arkham House. It was released in an edition of 553 copies of which 300 were given to the author, making this one of...

  • Robert Duncan
    Robert Duncan (poet)
    Robert Duncan was an American poet and a student of H.D. and the Western esoteric tradition who spent most of his career in and around San Francisco. Though associated with any number of literary traditions and schools, Duncan is often identified with the poets of the New American Poetry and Black...

    , Medieval Scenes
  • Richard Eberhart
    Richard Eberhart
    Richard Ghormley Eberhart was an American poet who published more than a dozen books of poetry and approximately twenty works in total...

    , An Herb Basket
  • Robert Lowell
    Robert Lowell
    Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet, considered the founder of the confessional poetry movement. He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress where he served from 1947 until 1948...

    , Poems 1938–1949
  • Mid-Century American Poets, an anthology including poets who came to prominence in the 1940s, including Robert Lowell
    Robert Lowell
    Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet, considered the founder of the confessional poetry movement. He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress where he served from 1947 until 1948...

    , Muriel Rukeyser
    Muriel Rukeyser
    Muriel Rukeyser was an American poet and political activist, best known for her poems about equality, feminism, social justice, and Judaism...

    , Karl Shapiro
    Karl Shapiro
    Karl Jay Shapiro was an American poet. He was appointed the fifth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1946.-Biography:...

    , Elizabeth Bishop
    Elizabeth Bishop
    Elizabeth Bishop was an American poet and short-story writer. She was the Poet Laureate of the United States from 1949 to 1950, a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1956 and a National Book Award Winner for Poetry in 1970. Elizabeth Bishop House is an artists' retreat in Great Village, Nova Scotia...

    , Theodore Roethke
    Theodore Roethke
    Theodore Roethke was an American poet, who published several volumes of poetry characterized by its rhythm, rhyming, and natural imagery. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954 for his book, The Waking.-Biography:...

    , Randall Jarrell
    Randall Jarrell
    Randall Jarrell was an American poet, literary critic, children's author, essayist, and novelist. He was the 11th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, a role which now holds the title of US Poet Laureate.-Life:Jarrell was a native of Nashville, Tennessee...

    , and John Ciardi
    John Ciardi
    John Anthony Ciardi was an American poet, translator, and etymologist. While primarily known as a poet, he also translated Dante's Divine Comedy, wrote several volumes of children's poetry, pursued etymology, contributed to the Saturday Review as a columnist and long-time poetry editor, and...

  • Theodore Morrison, The Dream of Alcestis
  • Howard Nemerov
    Howard Nemerov
    Howard Nemerov was an American poet. He was twice appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1963 to 1964, and again from 1988 to 1990. He received the National Book Award, Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and Bollingen Prize for The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov...

    , Guide to the Ruins
  • John Frederick Nims
    John Frederick Nims
    John Frederick Nims was an American poet and academic.-Life:He graduated from DePaul University, University of Notre Dame with an M.A., and from the University of Chicago with a Ph.D. in 1945.He published reviews of the works by Robert Lowell and W. S. Merwin...

    , A Fountain in Kentucky
  • Ezra Pound
    Ezra Pound
    Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...

    , Seventy Cantos
  • Carl Sandburg
    Carl Sandburg
    Carl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."-Biography:Sandburg was born in Galesburg,...

    , Complete Poems
  • Delmore Schwartz
    Delmore Schwartz
    Delmore Schwartz was an American poet and short story writer from Brooklyn, New York.-Biography:Schwartz was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. His parents, Harry and Rose, both Romanian Jews, separated when Schwartz was nine, and their divorce had a profound effect on him. Later, in 1930,...

    , Vaudeville for a Princess
  • William Jay Smith
    William Jay Smith
    William Jay Smith is an American poet. He was appointed the nineteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1968 to 1970.- Life :...

    , Celebration at Dark
  • Wallace Stevens
    Wallace Stevens
    Wallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as a lawyer for the Hartford insurance company in Connecticut.His best-known poems include "Anecdote of the Jar",...

    , The Auroras of Autumn, includes "The Auroras of Autumn," "Large Red Man Reading," "In a Bad Time," "The Ultimate Poem Is Abstract," "Bouquet of Roses in Sunlight," "An Ordinary Evening in New Haven," and "A Primitive Like an Orb"), Knopf
  • Peter Viereck
    Peter Viereck
    Peter Robert Edwin Viereck , was an American poet and political thinker, as well as a professor of history at Mount Holyoke College for five decades.-Background:...

    , Strike Through the Mask! New Lyrical Poems
  • Richard Wilbur
    Richard Wilbur
    Richard Purdy Wilbur is an American poet and literary translator. He was appointed the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1987, and twice received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1957 and again in 1989....

    , Ceremony and Other Poems, New York: Reynal and Hitchcock
  • William Carlos Williams
    William Carlos Williams
    William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...

    , The Collected Later Poems

Works published in other languages

Listed by nation where the work was first published and again by the poet's native land, if different; substantially revised works listed separately:

France
French poetry
French poetry is a category of French literature. It may include Francophone poetry composed outside France and poetry written in other languages of France.-French prosody and poetics:...

  • Aimé Césaire
    Aimé Césaire
    Aimé Fernand David Césaire was a French poet, author and politician from Martinique. He was "one of the founders of the négritude movement in Francophone literature".-Student, educator, and poet:...

    ,Corps perdu, Martinique author published in France; Paris: Fragrance
  • René Char
    René Char
    René Char was a 20th century French poet.-Biography:Char was born in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue in the Vaucluse department of France, the youngest of four children of Emile Char and Marie-Therese Rouget, where his father was mayor and managing director of the Vaucluse plasterworks...

    , Les Matinaux
  • Jean Follain
    Jean Follain
    Jean Follain, was a French author, poet and corporate lawyer. In the early days of his career he was a member of the "Sagesse" group. Follain was a friend of Max Jacob, André Salmon, Jean Paulhan, Pierre Pussy, Armen Lubin, and Pierre Reverdy...

    , Chef-Lieu
  • Jean Grosjean
    Jean Grosjean
    Jean Grosjean was a French poet, writer and translator.-Overview:...

    , Hypotases
  • Henri Michaux
    Henri Michaux
    Henri Michaux was a highly idiosyncratic Belgian-born poet, writer, and painter who wrote in French. He later took French citizenship. Michaux is best known for his esoteric books written in a highly accessible style, and his body of work includes poetry, travelogues, and art criticism...

    , Passages
  • Raymond Queneau
    Raymond Queneau
    Raymond Queneau was a French poet and novelist and the co-founder of Ouvroir de littérature potentielle .-Biography:Born in Le Havre, Seine-Maritime, Queneau was the only child of Auguste Queneau and Joséphine Mignot...

    , Petite cosmogonie portative
  • Tristan Tzara
    Tristan Tzara
    Tristan Tzara was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, composer and film director, he was known best for being one of the founders and central figures of the anti-establishment Dada movement...

    , pen name
    Pen name
    A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...

     of Sami Rosenstock, Parler seul

Germany

  • Berthold Brecht writes the Children's Hymn
    Children's Hymn
    Children's Hymn is the English name of a poem by Bertolt Brecht, Kinderhymne, written in 1950 and set to music by Hanns Eisler in the same year....

    , a poem protesting what he felt was Nazi corruption of the Deutschlandlied.

Hebrew
Hebrew literature
Hebrew literature consists of ancient, medieval, and modern writings in the Hebrew language. It is one of the primary forms of Jewish literature, though there have been cases of literature written in Hebrew by non-Jews...

  • Haim Gouri
    Haim Gouri
    Haim Gouri is an Israeli poet, novelist, journalist, and documentary filmmaker.-Biography:Haim Gouri was born in Tel Aviv. After studying at the Kadoorie Agricultural High School, he joined the Palmach militia. In 1947 he was sent to Hungary to assist Holocaust survivors to come to Palestine...

    , Ad A lot Ha-Shahar ("Till Dawn"), poetry and war diary, Israeli
    Israeli literature
    Israeli literature is literature written in the State of Israel by Israelis. Most works classed as Israeli literature are written in the Hebrew language, although some Israeli authors write in Yiddish, English, Arabic and Russian...

     writing in Hebrew
    Hebrew literature
    Hebrew literature consists of ancient, medieval, and modern writings in the Hebrew language. It is one of the primary forms of Jewish literature, though there have been cases of literature written in Hebrew by non-Jews...

  • Hillel Omer
    Hillel Omer
    Ayin Hillel was the pen name of Hillel Omer , an Israeli poet and children's author. -Biography:Hillel Omer was born in Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek in the Jezreel Valley. His father changed his surname, Kotovitz, to Ogni . He fought in the Palmach during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War...

     (who wrote under the name "Ayin Hillel"), Eretz Ha-Tzohorayim ("The Noon Country"), Publisher: Sifriat Poalim; Israel
    Israeli literature
    Israeli literature is literature written in the State of Israel by Israelis. Most works classed as Israeli literature are written in the Hebrew language, although some Israeli authors write in Yiddish, English, Arabic and Russian...


India
Indian poetry
Indian poetry, and Indian literature in general, has a long history dating back to Vedic times. They were written in various Indian languages such as Vedic Sanskrit, Classical Sanskrit, Oriya, Tamil, Kannada, Bengali and Urdu. Poetry in foreign languages such as Persian and English also have a...

Listed in alphabetical order by first name:
  • Bhagvati Charan Varma, Tara, Hindi verse play
  • Bhatt Damodar Kesavaji, pen name
    Pen name
    A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...

     Sudhansu Ramasagar, Indian
    Indian poetry
    Indian poetry, and Indian literature in general, has a long history dating back to Vedic times. They were written in various Indian languages such as Vedic Sanskrit, Classical Sanskrit, Oriya, Tamil, Kannada, Bengali and Urdu. Poetry in foreign languages such as Persian and English also have a...

    , Gujarati
  • Buddhidhari Singha, Aves, Maithili
  • Khalilur Rahman, A'inah Khane men, Urdu
    Urdu poetry
    Urdu poetry is a rich tradition of poetry and has many different types and forms. Borrowing much from the Persian language, it is today an important part of Pakistani and North Indian culture....

  • Madhunapantula Satyanarayanashastri, Andhra Racayitalu, Telugu-language poet (surname: Satyanarayanashastri)
  • Rentala Gopalakrishna, Sangharsana Telugu
    Telugu poetry
    Telugu poetry is verse originating in the southern provinces of India, predominantly from modern Andhra Pradesh and some corners of Tamilnadu and Karnataka.- Origins :...

  • Subhas Mukhopadhyay, Cirkut, Bengali
    Bengali poetry
    Bengali poetry is a form that originated in Pāli and other Prakrit socio-cultural traditions. It is antagonistic towards Vedic rituals and laws as opposed to the shramanic traditions such as Buddhism and Jainism...

  • Sreedhara Menon, Srirekha, Malayalam
    Malayalam poetry
    There are two types of meters used in Malayalam poetry, the classical Sanskrit based and Tamil based ones.- Sanskrit Meters :Sanskrit meters are primarily based on trisyllabic feet. The short sound is called a laghu, a long sound is called a guru. A guru is twice as long as a laghu...


Other languages

  • García Baena, Antiguo Muchacho ("Boy of Yore"); Spain
    Spanish poetry
    Spanish poetry is the poetic tradition of Spain. It may include elements of Spanish literature, and literatures written in languages of Spain other than Castilian, such as Catalan literature....

  • Alexander Mezhirov
    Alexander Mezhirov
    Alexander Petrovich Mezhirov was a Soviet and Russian poet, translator and critic....

    , Коммунисты, вперёд! ("Communists, Ahead!"), includes the title poem, which was first published in 1948
    1948 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* Sometime this year, Jack Kerouac introduced the phrase Beat Generation to describe his friends and as a general term describing the underground, anti-conformist youth gathering in New York at that...

    ; reprinted 1952
  • Nizar Qabbani
    Nizar Qabbani
    Nizar Tawfiq Qabbani was a Syrian diplomat, poet and publisher. His poetic style combines simplicity and elegance in exploring themes of love, eroticism, feminism, religion, and Arab nationalism...

    , You Are Mine, Syrian poet writing in Arabic
    Arabic poetry
    Arabic poetry is the earliest form of Arabic literature. Present knowledge of poetry in Arabic dates from the 6th century, but oral poetry is believed to predate that. Arabic poetry is categorized into two main types, rhymed, or measured, and prose, with the former greatly preceding the latter...


Awards and honors

  • Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
    Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
    The Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress—commonly referred to as the United States Poet Laureate—serves as the nation's official poet. During his or her term, the Poet Laureate seeks to raise the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing of...

     (later the post would be called "Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress"): Conrad Aiken
    Conrad Aiken
    Conrad Potter Aiken was an American novelist and poet, whose work includes poetry, short stories, novels, a play and an autobiography.-Early years:...

     appointed this year.
  • Harriet Monroe Prize from Poetry magazine: E.E. Cummings
  • National Book Award for Poetry
    National Book Award for Poetry
    The National Book Award for Poetry has been given since 1950 and is part of the National Book Awards, which are given annually for outstanding literary works by American citizens...

    : William Carlos Williams
    William Carlos Williams
    William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...

    , Paterson: Book III and Selected Poems
  • Pulitzer Prize for poetry
    Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
    The Pulitzer Prize in Poetry has been presented since 1922 for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author. However, special citations for poetry were presented in 1918 and 1919.-Winners:...

    : Gwendolyn Brooks
    Gwendolyn Brooks
    Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was an American poet. She was appointed Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968 and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1985.-Biography:...

    , Annie Allen
  • Bollingen Prize
    Bollingen Prize
    The Bollingen Prize for Poetry, which is currently awarded every two years by Beinecke Library of Yale University, is a literary honor bestowed on an American poet in recognition of the best book of new verse within the last two years, or for lifetime achievement.-Inception and controversy:The...

    : Wallace Stevens
    Wallace Stevens
    Wallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as a lawyer for the Hartford insurance company in Connecticut.His best-known poems include "Anecdote of the Jar",...

  • Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets: E. E. Cummings
    E. E. Cummings
    Edward Estlin Cummings , popularly known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e.e. cummings , was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright...

  • Canada:
    Canadian poetry
    - Beginnings:The earliest works of poetry, mainly written by visitors, described the new territories in optimistic terms, mainly targeted at a European audience...

     Governor General's Award, poetry or drama: Of Time and the Lover, Charles Wreford Watson

Births

Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
  • February 6 – Deborah Digges
    Deborah Digges
    -Biography:She was born Deborah Leah Sugarbaker in Jefferson City, Missouri, on February 6, 1950. Her father was a physican and her mother was a nurse; she was the sixth child in a family of ten children....

     (died 2009
    2009 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* January 5 – The Turkish government announces it will posthumously restore the citizenship it had stripped from influential poet Nazim Hikmet, a Marxist who died in 1963 as an exile in the Soviet...

    ), American poet and academic
  • April 4 – Charles Bernstein
    Charles Bernstein
    Charles Bernstein is an American poet, theorist, editor, and literary scholar. Bernstein holds the Donald T. Regan Chair in the Department of English at the University of Pennsylvania. He is one of the most prominent members of the Language poets . In 2006 he was elected a Fellow of the American...

    , American poet, critic, editor and teacher
  • April 28:
    • Carolyn Forché
      Carolyn Forché
      Carolyn Forché is an American poet, editor, translator, and human rights advocate.-Life:Forché was born in Detroit, Michigan, on April 28, 1950, to Michael Joseph and Louise Nada Blackford Sidlosky. Forché earned a B.A...

      , American poet, editor, and human rights advocate
    • Brian Brett
      Brian Brett
      Brian Brett is a Canadian poet and novelist.He studied literature at Simon Fraser University from 1969 to 1974...

      , Canadian
      Canadian poetry
      - Beginnings:The earliest works of poetry, mainly written by visitors, described the new territories in optimistic terms, mainly targeted at a European audience...

       poet and novelist
  • May 9:
    • Christopher Dewdney
      Christopher Dewdney
      Christopher Dewdney is a Canadian writer and poet.He was born in London, Ontario, and presently lives in Toronto, where he is a professor at York University. He is the long-time partner of writer Barbara Gowdy. Winner of the 2007 Harbourfront Festival Prize, he is the author of four books of...

      , avant-garde Canadian
      Canadian poetry
      - Beginnings:The earliest works of poetry, mainly written by visitors, described the new territories in optimistic terms, mainly targeted at a European audience...

       poet
    • Jorie Graham
      Jorie Graham
      Jorie Graham is an American poet. The U.S. Poetry Foundation suggests "She is perhaps the most celebrated poet of the American post-war generation". She replaced poet Seamus Heaney as Boylston Professor at Harvard, becoming the first woman to be appointed to this position...

       American poet and the editor of numerous volumes of poetry
  • June 21 – Anne Carson
    Anne Carson
    Anne Carson is a Canadian poet, essayist, translator and professor of Classics. Carson lived in Montreal for several years and taught at McGill University, the University of Michigan, and at Princeton University from 1980-1987....

    , Canadian
    Canadian poetry
    - Beginnings:The earliest works of poetry, mainly written by visitors, described the new territories in optimistic terms, mainly targeted at a European audience...

     poet, essayist, translator, and academic
  • July 1 – Ekram Ali
    Ekram Ali
    Ekram Ali is a noted Indian Bengali poet and critic. Born in a small village named Teghoria of a bengali Muslim parentage...

    , Indian Bengali
    Bengali poetry
    Bengali poetry is a form that originated in Pāli and other Prakrit socio-cultural traditions. It is antagonistic towards Vedic rituals and laws as opposed to the shramanic traditions such as Buddhism and Jainism...

      poet and critic
  • August 8 – Philip Salom
    Philip Salom
    Philip Salom is a contemporary Australian poet and novelist.-Biography:Growing up on a farm in Brunswick Junction in the South West region of Western Australia. Salom had an isolated childhood before boarding at Bunbury during his high school years...

    , Australian poet and novelist
  • August 12 – Medbh McGuckian
    Medbh McGuckian
    Medbh McGuckian is a poet from Northern Ireland.-Biography:She was born the third of six children as Maeve McCaughan to Hugh and Margaret McCaughan in North Belfast. Her father was a school headmaster and her mother an influential art and music enthusiast...

    , Northern Ireland poet
  • September 1 – John Forbes
    John Forbes (poet)
    -Life:John Forbes was born in Melbourne, Australia, but during his childhood his family lived in northern Queensland, Malaya and New Guinea. He went to Sydney University and his circle of friends included the poets Robert Adamson, Martin Johnston, and John Tranter...

     (died 1998
    1998 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* Samizdat poetry magazine founded in Chicago .* Skanky Possum poetry magazine founded in Austin, Texas....

    ), Australian
  • September 30 – Shaunt Basmajian
    Shaunt Basmajian
    Shaunt Basmajian was a Canadian poet and author.Born in Beirut, Lebanon to Armenian parents, Basmajian emigrated to Canada when he was seven years old. He was a founder of the Canadian Poetry Association, co-founder of Old Nun Publications , and was a member of the Parliament Street Library poetry...

     (died 1990
    1990 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* Allen Ginsberg crowned "Majelis King" in Prague on May Day...

    ), Canadian
    Canadian poetry
    - Beginnings:The earliest works of poetry, mainly written by visitors, described the new territories in optimistic terms, mainly targeted at a European audience...

  • October 24 – Syed Kawsar Jamal
    Syed Kawsar Jamal
    - Biography :Syed Kawsar Jamal who was born in the village of Murshidabad, West Bengal, India on 24 October, 1950, is an eminent poet and essayist in Bengali. He started writing from the early seventies of the last century. He has been contributing his writings to the major literery journals in...

     Indian Bengali
    Bengali poetry
    Bengali poetry is a form that originated in Pāli and other Prakrit socio-cultural traditions. It is antagonistic towards Vedic rituals and laws as opposed to the shramanic traditions such as Buddhism and Jainism...

      poet and essayist
  • December 24 – Dana Gioia
    Dana Gioia
    -Poetry:It was as a poet that Gioia first began to attract widespread attention in the early 1980s, with frequent appearances in The Hudson Review, Poetry, and The New Yorker. In the same period, he published a number of essays and book reviews...

    , American poet who retired early from his career as a corporate executive at General Foods
    General Foods
    General Foods Corporation was a company whose direct predecessor was established in the USA by Charles William Post as the Postum Cereal Company in 1895. The name General Foods was adopted in 1929, after several corporate acquisitions...

     to write full time and later became chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts
    National Endowment for the Arts
    The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...


  • Also:
    • Anthony J. Bennett, Australian
    • Joanne M. Braxton, African American
    • Frances Chung
    • Theodore Deppe
    • Susan L. Helwig
    • Edward Hirsch
      Edward Hirsch
      Edward Hirsch is an American poet and critic who wrote a national bestseller about reading poetry. He has published eight books of poems, including The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems , which brings together thirty-five years of work. He is president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial...

       American poet and academic
    • T. R. Hummer, American
    • Rodney Jones
      Rodney Jones
      Rodney Jones is an American poet and professor of English at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Jones was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the winner of the 1989 National Book Critics Circle Award. His other honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Peter I.B...

      , American poet and academic
    • Dimitri Kraniotis, Greek dancer and poet living in France
    • William Logan (poet)
      William Logan (poet)
      William Logan is an American poet, critic and scholar.-Life:Logan was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to W. Donald Logan, Jr. and Nancy Damon Logan. He lives in Gainesville, Florida and Cambridge, England with his wife, the poet and artist, Debora Greger...

      , American poet, critic and academic
    • Kim Maltman
      Kim Maltman
      Kim Maltman is a Canadian poet and physicist who lives in Toronto. He is a professor of Applied Mathematics at York University and pursues research in theoretical nuclear/particle physics.- Works :...

       Canadian
      Canadian poetry
      - Beginnings:The earliest works of poetry, mainly written by visitors, described the new territories in optimistic terms, mainly targeted at a European audience...

       poet and physicist
    • E. Ethelbert Miller
      E. Ethelbert Miller
      Eugene Ethelbert Miller, best known as E. Ethelbert Miller is an African American poet and teacher.-Life:...

      , African American
    • Wayne Scott Ray
    • Stan Rogal
    • Kenneth Sherman
    • Sandy Shreve
      Sandy Shreve
      Sandy Shreve is a Canadian poet living in Vancouver, British Columbia. Sandy has published four poetry collections, most recently Suddenly, So Much. Recent work has appeared in her chapbook, Cedar Cottage Suite and the journals Literary Canada Review, Exile, and The Windsor Review. A new...

    • Nicolette Stasko
      Nicolette Stasko
      Nicolette Stasko is a contemporary Australian poet, novelist and non-fiction writer of United States origin.Nicolette Stasko was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania to Polish and Hungarian parents. She completed a BA with honours in English at Pennsylvania State University and an MA in education at...

      , American-born Australian poet, teacher and editor; has a daughter with David Brooks
      David Brooks (author)
      David Gordon Brooks is an Australian author.He graduated from the Australian National University in 1974. He married Alison Summers in 1975. Brooks and Summers then studied abroad and received their M.A. degrees from the University of Toronto...

    • Arthur Sze
      Arthur Sze
      Arthur Sze is a second-generation Chinese American poet.-Background:Sze was educated at the University of California, Berkeley, and is the author of eight books of poetry...

    • Chase Twichell
      Chase Twichell
      Chase Twichell is an American poet, professor, and publisher, the founder in 1999, of Ausable Press. Her most recent poetry collection is Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been, which earned her Claremont Graduate University's prestigious $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award....

      , American poet and owner of her own publishing company, Ausable Press
    • John Yau
      John Yau
      John Yau is an American poet and critic who lives in New York City. He received his B.A. from Bard College in 1972 and his M.F.A. from Brooklyn College in 1978...

      , American poet and critic
    • Komninos Zervos
      Komninos Zervos
      Komninos Zervos is a Greek-Australian performance poet and teacher.-Life:Born in Melbourne in 1950, Komninos Zervos currently lives in Melbourne, Australia.Komninos' poems are a playful combination of social commentary, autobiography and farce...

       (also known as "kominos"), Australian performance poet

Deaths

Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
  • March 5 – Edgar Lee Masters
    Edgar Lee Masters
    Edgar Lee Masters was an American poet, biographer, and dramatist...

     (born 1868
    1868 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Canada:* James Anderson. Sawney's Letters, or Cariboo Rhymes.* Charles Mair, Dreamland and Other Poems, Canada-United Kingdom:...

    ), American poet, biographer and dramatist
  • May 4 – William Rose Benét
    William Rose Benét
    William Rose Benét was an American poet, writer, and editor.He was the older brother of Stephen Vincent Benét....

    , American poet, writer, editor, and the older brother of Stephen Vincent Benét
    Stephen Vincent Benét
    Stephen Vincent Benét was an American author, poet, short story writer, and novelist. Benét is best known for his book-length narrative poem of the American Civil War, John Brown's Body , for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1929, and for two short stories, "The Devil and Daniel Webster" and "By...

  • May 20 – John Gould Fletcher
    John Gould Fletcher
    John Gould Fletcher was an Imagist poet and author. He was born in Little Rock, Arkansas to a socially prominent family. After attending Phillips Academy, Andover Fletcher went on to Harvard University from 1903 to 1907, when he dropped out shortly after his father's death.Fletcher lived in...

    , Pulitzer Prize-winning American, Imagist poet and author
  • August 27 – Cesare Pavese
    Cesare Pavese
    Cesare Pavese was an Italian poet, novelist, literary critic and translator; he is widely considered among the major authors of the 20th century in his home country.- Early life and education :...

     (born 1908
    1908 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* Ezra Pound leaves America for Europe...

    ) Italian
    Italian poetry
    -Important Italian poets:* Giacomo da Lentini a 13th Century poet who is believed to have invented the sonnet.* Guido Cavalcanti Tuscan poet, and a key figure in the Dolce Stil Novo movement....

     poet, novelist, literary critic and translator
  • October 19 – Edna St. Vincent Millay
    Edna St. Vincent Millay
    Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American lyrical poet, playwright and feminist. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and was known for her activism and her many love affairs. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work...

    , 58 (born 1892
    1892 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* William Butler Yeats founds the Irish Literary Society in Dublin....

    ), of a heart attack;
  • September 17 – Hoshino Tenchi
    Hoshino Tenchi
    was a noted poet and martial arts master in Meiji period Japan.-Biography:Hoshino Tenchi was one of the founders of the Bungakukai literary magazine, which was highly influential in the development of Japanese literature and Japanese poetry in the Meiji period...

     星野天知 (born 1862
    1862 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* February — Dante Gabriel Rossetti, on returning home with Algernon Charles Swinburne after a night on the town, finds his wife, Elizabeth Siddal, dead on the floor from an oversose of laudanum...

    ), Meiji period
    Meiji period
    The , also known as the Meiji era, is a Japanese era which extended from September 1868 through July 1912. This period represents the first half of the Empire of Japan.- Meiji Restoration and the emperor :...

     poet and martial arts master; a co-founder of Bungakukai literary magazine; 8th Grand Master and a teacher of the Yagyu Shinkage-ryu
    Yagyu Shinkage-ryu
    is one of the oldest Japanese schools of swordsmanship . Its primary founder was Kamiizumi Nobutsuna, who called the school Shinkage-ryū. In 1565, Nobutsuna bequeathed the school to his greatest student, Yagyū Munetoshi, who added his own name to the school. Today, the Yagyū Shinkage-ryū remains...

     martial-arts school (surname: Hoshino)
  • December 5 – Sri Aurobindo
    Sri Aurobindo
    Sri Aurobindo , born Aurobindo Ghosh or Ghose , was an Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru, and poet. He joined the Indian movement for freedom from British rule and for a duration became one of its most important leaders, before developing his own vision of human progress...

     (Bengali: শ্রী অরবিন্দ Sri Ôrobindo) (born 1872
    1872 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-United Kingdom:* Alfred Austin, Interludes* Robert Browning, Fifine at the Fair...

    ), Indian
    Indian poetry
    Indian poetry, and Indian literature in general, has a long history dating back to Vedic times. They were written in various Indian languages such as Vedic Sanskrit, Classical Sanskrit, Oriya, Tamil, Kannada, Bengali and Urdu. Poetry in foreign languages such as Persian and English also have a...

      nationalist, poet, Yogi and spiritual Guru who wrote mostly in English
  • December 26 – James Stephens
    James Stephens (author)
    James Stephens was an Irish novelist and poet.James Stephens wrote many retellings of Irish myths and fairy tales. His retellings are marked by a rare combination of humor and lyricism...

    , Irish
    Irish poetry
    The history of Irish poetry includes the poetries of two languages, one in Irish and the other in English. The complex interplay between these two traditions, and between both of them and other poetries in English, has produced a body of work that is both rich in variety and difficult to...

     poet and novelist
  • Also:
    • Khavirakpan (born 1895
      1895 in poetry
      * February 18 — John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry, father of Oscar Wilde's lover, leaves a calling card at one of Wilde's London clubs, the Albermarle. On the back of it he writes "For Oscar Wilde posing as a Somdomite"...

      ), Indian
      Indian poetry
      Indian poetry, and Indian literature in general, has a long history dating back to Vedic times. They were written in various Indian languages such as Vedic Sanskrit, Classical Sanskrit, Oriya, Tamil, Kannada, Bengali and Urdu. Poetry in foreign languages such as Persian and English also have a...

      , Manipuri-language poet
    • Xavier Villaurrutia
      Xavier Villaurrutia
      Xavier Villaurrutia y González was a Mexican poet and playwright, whose most famous works are the short theatrical dramas, called Autos profanos, compiled in the work Poesía y teatro completos published in 1953....

      , Mexican poet and dramatist

See also

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