1909 in poetry

Events

February – Founding of the Poetry Recital Society, later the Poetry Society, in London.

July 1 – English poets F. M. Cornford and Frances Darwin marry.

T. E. Hulme leaves the Poets' Club, and starts meeting with F. S. Flint and other poets in a new group which Hulme referred to as the 'Secession Club'; they meet at the Eiffel Tower restaurant in London's Soho district to discuss plans to reform contemporary poetry through the introduction of free verse, tanka and haiku, and the removal of all unnecessary verbiage from poems. In April, Ezra Pound is introduced to the group and joins it.

Canada

May Austin Low, Confession, and Other Verses.

Tom MacInnes, Lonesome Bar and Other Poems (much of the book was reprinted in In Amber Lands 1910)

Robert W. Service, Ballads of a Cheechako

E. W. Thomson, The Many-Mansioned House and Other Poems

United Kingdom

Laurence Binyon, England, and Other Poems

A. C. Bradley, Oxford Lectures on Poetry, criticism

Joseph Campbell, The Mountainy Singer

Roby Datta, Echoes from the East and West to which are added stray notes of Mine Own, edited by Roby Datta, Cambridge: Galloway and Porter, Indian poet, writing in English, published in the United Kingdom

John Davidson, Fleet Street, and Other Poems

Thomas Hardy, Time's Laughingstocks, and Other Verses

George Meredith, Last Poems

Alfred Noyes, The Enchanted Island, and Other Poems

Ezra Pound, American poet published in the United Kingdom:

Personae

Exultations

The Poets' Club publishes two anthologies: For Christmas MDCCCCVIII (January 1909) and The Book of the Poets' Club (December) including the first examples of Imagist poetry

James Stephens, Insurrections, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom

John Millington Synge, Poems and Translations, preface by W. B. Yeats, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom

United States

Ambrose Bierce, Collected Works, including poetry, published in 12 volumes from this year to 1912

Florence Earle Coates, Lyrics of Life

Francis M. Finch, The Blue and the Gray and other verses, published posthumously (the author died in 1907), with an introduction by Andrew Dickson White, "and a portrait of the author"; New York: Henry Holt and Company

Louise Imogen Guiney, Happy Ending

James Oppenheim, Monday Morning

Ezra Pound, American poet published in the United Kingdom:

Personae

Exultations

Lizette Woodworth Reese, A Wayside Lute

Robert Service, Ballads of a Cheechako

George Sterling, A Wine of Wizardry

William Carlos Williams, Poems

Other in English

James Stephens, Insurrections, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom

John Millington Synge, Poems and Translations, preface by W. B. Yeats, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom

India

Kerala Varma Valiya Koil Thampuran, ' 'Deiva Yogam' ', a short narrative poem, India, Malayalam-language

Telugu language

Chellapilla Venkata Sastry and Divakarla Tirupati Sastry:

Panigrihita

Sravananandam

Chilakamarti Lakshminarasimham, Gayopakhyanam, verse drama about the mythological Gaya, devotee of Lord Krishna

Rayaprolu Subba Rao, Lalitha

Other

Jean Cocteau, La Lampe d'Aladin, published when the author was 20 years old; France

Ernst Enno, Uued luuletused, Estonia

René Maran, La Maison du Bonheur, Guyanese poet writing in French

Yone Noguchi, The Pilgrimage, Japan

Births

Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:

February 14 – A. M. Klein (died 1972) Ukrainian-born Canadian poet, essayist and author of short stories

February 28 – Stephen Spender (died 1995), English poet, novelist and essayist who concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle

March 6 – Vagaland, pen name of Thomas Alexander Robertson (died 1973), Shetland Scottish poet

March 9 – Elder Olson (died 1992), American poet, teacher and literary critic

April 24 – Robert Farren (Roibeárd Ó Faracháin) (died 1984), Irish poet

May 1 – Yannis Ritsos (died 1990), Greek poet

May 9 – Robert Garioch (died 1981), Scots-language poet, translator, and key member in the literary revival of the language in the mid-20th century

May 30 – Edappally Raghavan Pillai (died 1936), Indian, Malayalam-language poet

July 18 – Bishnu Dey (died 1982), Bengali poet, prose writer and movie critic

July 19 – Balamani Amma, Indian, Malayalam-language poet, a woman

July 27 – Charles Brasch (died 1973), New Zealand poet, literary editor, arts patron and founding editor of the literary journal Landfall

Augusxt 1 – W. R. Rodgers (died 1969), Irish poet, essayist, book reviewer, radio broadcaster, script writer, lecturer, teacher and Presbyterian minister

October 4 – P. Kunhiraman Nair (died 1978), Indian, Malayalam-language poet

October 12 – Dorothy Livesay (died 1996), Canadian poet

November 16 – Michio Mado, Japanese poet who worked for the Office of the Governor-General of Taiwan

December 15 – John Glassco (died 1981) Canadian poet, memoirist, novelist and pornographer

Also – Beatrice Deloitte Davis (died 1992), Australian book editor and poet

Deaths

January 22 – Nabinchandra Sen (born 1847), Bengali poet and writer

March 23 – John Davidson (born 1857), Scottish poet and playwright

March 24 – John Millington Synge (born 1871), Irish playwright, poet, prose writer and collector of folklore

April 10 – Algernon Charles Swinburne (born 1837), English poet

May 18 – George Meredith (born 1828), English novelist and poet

June 24 – Sarah Orne Jewett (born 1849), American novelist, short story writer and poet

July 26 – William Reed Huntington (born 1838), American Episcopal priest, author and poet

August 21 – George Cabot Lodge (born 1873), American

November 10 – George Essex Evans (born 1863), Australian

November 18 – Renée Vivien (born 1877), English-born French-language Symbolist poet

November 19

Richard Watson Gilder (born 1844), American poet and editor

John B. Tabb (born 1845), American poet, Catholic priest and scholar

November 28 – W. T. Goodge (born 1862), Australian

November 30 – Romesh Chundar Dutt (born 1848), writer of Indian poetry in English; cousin of Toru Dutt