Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's
poetry or literature (for instance,
Irish or
France).
Events
- The
Group, a British poetry movement,
starts meeting in London
with
gatherings taking place once a week, on Friday evenings, at first
at Hobsbaum's flat and later at the
house of Edward
Lucie-Smith. The poets gathered to discuss each other's
work, putting into practice the sort of analysis and objective
comment in keeping with the principles of Hobsbaum's Cambridge
tutor F. R.
Leavis and of the New Criticism in general. Before each meeting
about six or seven poems by one poet would be typed, duplicated and
distributed to the dozen or so participants.
- The Movement poets as a group in
Britain came to public notice this year in Robert Conquest's anthology New
Lines. The core of the group consisted of Philip Larkin
, Elizabeth
Jennings, D. J. Enright,
Kingsley Amis, Thom Gunn and Donald
Davie. They were identified with a hostility to modernism and
internationalism, and looked to Thomas
Hardy as a model. However, both Davie and Gunn later moved away
from this position.
- Henry Rago[311445] becomes
editor of Poetry
- April — Wallace Stevens is
baptized a Catholic by the chaplain of St. Francis Hospital in
Hartford, Connecticut, where Stevens spent his last days suffering
from terminal cancer. After a brief release from the hospital,
Stevens was readmitted and died on August 2
at the age of 76.
Beat poets
- On
July 19 Beat poet Weldon Kees's Plymouth Savoy was found on the
north side of the Golden Gate Bridge
in San Francisco
with the keys in the ignition. When his
friends went to search his apartment, all they found were the cat
he had named Lonesome and a pair of red socks in the sink. His
sleeping bag and savings account book were missing. He left no
note. No
one is sure if Kees, 41, jumped off the bridge that day or if he
went to Mexico
.
Before he disappeared, Kees quoted Rilke to friend Michael Grieg, ominously saying that sometimes
a person needs to change his life completely.
- October 7 — The
"Six Gallery reading" takes
place in San
Francisco
with
Kenneth Rexroth acting as M.C., Philip
Lamantia, Michael McClure,
Gary Snyder, and Philip Whalen read, and the event included
Allen Ginsberg's first reading of
Howl (written the previous summer at
Ginsberg's cottage in Berkeley, California
; the reading (1) brought together the East and West
Coast factions of the Beat
Generation, (2) was the first important public manifestation of
the poetry movement and (3) helped to herald the West Coast
literary revolution that became known as the San Francisco Renaissance.
In the audience a totally drunken Jack
Kerouac refused to read his own work but cheered on the others,
shouting "Yeah! Go! Go!" during their performances.
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:
- James K. Baxter:
- The Fire and the Anvil, critical study, based on three
Macmillan Brown lectures on poetry at Victoria University in 1954,
criticism
- Traveller’s Litany, a long poem published in pamphlet
form
- J. R.
Hervey, She Was My Spring
- Kendrick Smithyman, The
Gay Trapeze, Wellington: Handcraft Press
- W. H.
Auden, The Shield of Achilles,
first published in the United States
- Austin Clarke, Ancient
Lights
- Robert Conquest,
Poems
- Patric Dickinson, The Scale
of Things
- Elizabeth Jennings, A Way
of Looking
- Philip Larkin, The Less Deceived, Hessle, East
Yorkshire: Marvell Press
- Robert Graves, Collected Poems
1955, revisions and reprintings of previously published poems;
the book was among eight books of poetry included in "A List of 250
Outstanding Books of the Year" in the New York Times Book Review.
- Norman MacCaig, Riding
Lights
- Hugh MacDiarmid, (pen name of Christopher Murray Grieve), In
Memoriam James Joyce
- Stephen Spender, Collected
Poems. 1928-1953, what he considers his best poems,
selected and revised; among eight books of poetry included in "A
List of 250 Outstanding Books of the Year" in the New York Times Book Review.
- Iain Crichton Smith, 'The
Long River
- R.S. Thomas, Song at the Year's Turning,
introduction by John Betjeman
- Charles Tomlinson, The
Necklace
- A.R. Ammons, Ommateum with Doxology, his
first book
- W. H.
Auden, The Shield of Achilles, a book
of 28 pastoral and devotional poems (his poem of the same name was
first published in 1953); among eight
books of poetry included in "A List of 250 Outstanding Books of the
Year" in the New York Times Book
Review.
- Elizabeth Bishop, Poems:
North & South — A Cold Spring, (Houghton Mifflin); among
eight books of poetry included in "A List of 250 Outstanding Books
of the Year" in the New York
Times Book Review.
- Paul Blackburn, The
Dissolving Fabric, Highlands, North Carolina: The Divers
Press
- Kenneth Burke, Book of
Monuments: Poems 1915–1954
- John Ciardi, As If
- Robert P. Tristram Coffin, Selected
Poems, among eight books of poetry included in "A List of 250
Outstanding Books of the Year" in the New York Times Book Review.
- Gregory Corso, The Vestal Lady
on Brattle and Other Poems
- Louis Coxe, The Second
Man
- Emily Dickinson, The
Complete Poems, three volumes
- Robert Creeley, All That is
Lovely in Man
- Emily Dickinson, The Poems
of Emily Dickinson, three volumes, edited by Thomas H. Johnson; a "definitive edition of the
Dickinson poems with variant readings critically compared,"
according to the New York Times Book Review, which listed
it among eight books of poetry included in "A List of 250
Outstanding Books of the Year".
- Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
Pictures of the Gone World
- Isabella Gardner, Birthdays
from the Ocean, her first collection; among eight books of
poetry included in "A List of 250 Outstanding Books of the Year" in
the New York Times Book
Review.
- William Graham , The
Nightfishing
- Donald Hall, Exiles and
Marriages
- Robert Hughes, Collected
Poems
- Randall Jarrell, Selected
Poems
- Josephine Miles,
Prefabrications
- Howard Nemerov, The Salt
Garden
- John Crowe Ransom, Poems
and Essays
- Adrienne Rich, The Diamond
Cutters and Other Poems
- Louis Simpson, Good News of
Death
- William Carlos Williams,
Journey to Love
Criticism, scholarship, and biography in the United States
- Carl Sandburg, Prairie-town
boy (autobiography; essentially excerpts from Always the
Young Strangers)
Other in English
Works published in other languages
- Guillaume Apollinaire,
pen name of Wilhelm Apollinaris de
Kostrowitzky, Poemes a Lou, (a revised edition of
Ombre de mon amour, published by P. Cailler Vesenaz
1947), posthumously published (died
1918)
- Pierre Oster, Le Champ de
mai
- Jacques Prévert, La
Pluie et le beau temps
- Victor Segalen, Stèles,
Peintures, Équipée (see also Stèles 1912)
- Jean Tortel, Naissance de
l'objet
- Tristan Tzara, pen name of Sami Rosenstock, Le temps
naissant
Indian subcontinent
Including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Listed
alphabetically by first name, regardless of surname:
Other languages of the Indian subcontinent
- Amrita Pritan, Sunehure,
Punjabi
- Birendra Chattopadhyay,
Ulukhagdar Kabita, Bengali
- C. Narayanan Nair, translator,
Kannaki-Kovalam, translation into Sanskrit from the Silappadikaram, a
Tamil-language poem
- Dina Nath Wali, also known as
"Almast", Bala Yepari, lyrics on
rural themes, mostly in the vatsun
form; Kashmiri
- Hitanarayan Jha, Kavivar
Canda Jha O Wordsworthak prakrtiprem, a comparative study of
Chanda Jha and William Wordsworth's love of nature;
Maithili
- Jaswant Singh Neki, Asle
Te Ohle, Punjabi
- Kalachand Shastri
Chingorgban, Manipuri Mahabharat, translation into
Manipuri from the Sanskrit Mahabharat, in 20 volumes, published from
this year to 1980
- Krishnakanta Mishra,
Maithili Sahityak Itihas, history of Maithili literature
- Lekhraj Aziz, Gul Va Khar,
study of prosody and the rules of Islamic meters, including
examples from various works by modern Sindhi poets
- Ram Nath Shastri, translator,
Niti Sataka, translation into Dogri from the Sanskrit poems of Bhartrihari
- Sri Naunram Samskarta,
Dasa dev, Rajasthani
- Sudhindranath Datta,
translator, Pratidhvani, translation into Bengali from English, French and German
poems, including verses by Shakespeare, Mallarme and Heine
- V. R. M.
Chettiyar, Kavinan
Kural, literary essays on Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, Bharatidasan, Mutiyaracan among others; Tamil
Other languages
Awards and honors
Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
- February 2 – Leszek Engelking,
Polish poet
- April 17 – Erin Mouré, Canadian poet
- April 22 – Marie Uguay (died
1981), French-Canadian
- May 13 – Mark Abley, Canadian poet, journalist, editor and
non-fiction writer
- October 19 – Jason Shinder, (died
2008), American poet, editor, anthologist and
teacher who founded the Y.M.C.A. National Writer’s Voice program,
one of the country’s largest networks of literary-arts centers, at
one time an assistant to Allen
Ginsberg
- December 23 – Carol Ann Duffy,
British poet
- Also:
- Marilyn Chin, American
- Chris Edwards, Australian
- Jennifer Harrison, Australian psychiatrist, poet and
photographer
- Margaret Lindsay
Holton
- Kim Morrissey, Canadian poet and playwright
- Patricia Smith poet, "spoken-word performer", playwright,
author, writing teacher
- Yang Lian 杨炼, Chinese poet associated with the Misty Poets
- William Wall, Irish novelist, poet and short story
writer
- Les Wicks, Australian
- Wang Xiaoni, Chinese
- Dean Young, American
- Ouyang Yu, Australian poet, novelist, writer,
translator and academic
- Lisa Zeidner, American
Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
- January 1 – Mizuho Ōta 太田水穂
pen-name of "Teiichi Ōta" 太田 貞, he
occasionally also used another pen name, "Mizuhonoya" (born
1876), Shōwa period Japanese poet and literary scholar (surname:
Ōta)
- January 19 – Seaforth
Mackenzie (born 1913), Australian poet and novelist
- January 20 – Robert P. Coffin, 62
- June 19 – Adrienne Monnier, 63
(born 1892), French poet and publisher
- July 18 – Weldon Kees, 41 (born
1914), American poet, was presumed dead (see
"Events" section). He was a poet, critic, novelist, short story
writer, painter and composer.
- August 2 – Wallace Stevens, 75
(born 1879), American poet
- December 30 – Rex Ingamells (born
1913), Australian, influential in the Jindyworobak Movement
- date not known – Brian Vrepont
(born 1882), Australian
See also
Notes
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