In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fieldsAnd I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).
April 6 – Publication in London of the American Ezra Pound's poetry collection Cathay, "translations... for the most part of the Chinese of Rihaku, from the notes of the late Ernest Fenollosa, and the decipherings of the Professors Mori and Ariga", by Elkin Mathews.
April 24 – Deportation of Armenian notables from Istanbul begins. Among deported poets killed as part of the Armenian Genocide are Ardashes Harutiunian, Jacques Sayabalian, Ruben Sevak and Siamanto.
c. May – Publication of the first modern book illustrated with wood engravings, Frances Cornford's Spring Morning (published by The Poetry Bookshop, London) with engravings by the poet's cousin Gwen Raverat.
July – Others: A Magazine of the New Verse is founded by Alfred Kreymborg; it will run until 1917, publishing poetry, other writing and visual art.
August–December – Ezra Pound is completing the first sections of his poem The Cantos.
Poets and World War I
see also "Deaths in World War I" in the "Deaths" section, below
May 13 – While Julian Grenfell stands talking with other officers, a shell lands a few yards away and a splinter hits him in the head. He is taken to a hospital in Boulogne, where he dies 13 days later. His poem "Into Battle" is published in The Times the day after his death. His younger brother Gerald William (Billy) Grenfell is killed in action 2 months later
September 11 – Publication of Lucy Whitmell's poem "Christ in Flanders" in The Spectator.
Blaise Cendrars, pen name of Frédéric Louis Sauser, a Swiss novelist and poet naturalized as a French citizen in 1916, loses his right arm during his service in World War I
C. J. Dennis, long poem The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, after serialization in The Bulletin since 1909, Australia
Henry Lawson, My Army, o my Army! and other Songs, Australia
Shaw Neilson, Old Granny Sullivan, Sydney, Bookfellow, Australia
Arthur Stanley Bourinot, Laurentian Lyrics and Other Poems
John McCrae, "In Flanders Fields", a war memorial poem, is written on May 3 after McCrae's friend and former student, Lt. Alexis Helmer, was killed in battle (McCrae himself would not survive the war); later in the year the poem is published in Punch (Canadian poet published in the United Kingdom; see text of poem, above)
Robert W. Norwood, His Lady of the Sonnets
Duncan Campbell Scott, Lines in Memory of Edmund Morris
Frederick George Scott, The Gates of Time, and Other Poems (London: Samuel Bagster & Sons.
Richard Aldington, Images 1910-15
Rupert Brooke, 1914 & Other Poems
G. K. Chesterton, Poems
Frances Cornford, Spring Morning
John Drinkwater, Swords and Ploughshares
T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock published in Poetry magazine in Chicago (June), then, later this year, in a book in the United Kingdom
F. S. Flint, Cadences
Wilfrid Gibson, Battle
Thomas Hardy, "The Convergence of the Twain, lines on the loss of the Titanic"
Ford Madox Hueffer, Antwerp
Violet Jacob, Songs of Angus, Scottish poet
Rudyard Kipling
The Fringes of the Fleet, essays and poems
"My Boy Jack", written after his beloved son, John (called Jack) goes missing in the Battle of Loos during World War I; years later, Jack's death is confirmed to Kipling and his family; a play and film with the same title are later created, based on the Kipling family's loss
Ronald Knox, Absolute and Abitofhell, first published in Oxford Magazine (November 28, 1912); satirical verse on Foundations, 1912
Richard Le Gallienne, The Silk-Hat Soldier, and Other Poems
Francis Ledwidge, Songs of the Fields, Irish author published in the United Kingdom
John McCrae, "In Flanders Fields", a war memorial poem, is written on May 3 after McCrae's friend and former student, Lt. Alexis Helmer, was killed in battle (McCrae himself would not survive the war); later in the year the poem is published in Punch (Canadian poet published in the United Kingdom)
James Pittendrigh Macgillivray, Pro Patria, Scottish poet
Alice Meynell, Poems of the War
Jessie Pope, Jessie Pope's War Poems and More War Poems
Ezra Pound, Cathay, American poet published in the United Kingdom
Hardwicke Rawnsley, The European War 1914-1915: Poems
Herbert Read, Songs of Chaos
George William Russell, ("Æ"):
Gods of War, with Other Poems
Imaginations and Reveries
Edith Sitwell, The Mother and Other Poems
James Stephens, Irish author published in the United Kingdom:
The Adventures of Seumas Beg: The Rocky Road to Dublin
Songs from the Clay
J. R. R. Tolkien, "Goblin Feet", published in Oxford Poetry
Katharine Tynan, Flower of Youth: poems in war time
Anna Wickham, The Contemplative Quarry
H. B. Elliott, ed., Lest We Forget: A War Anthology
Poems of Today
Ezra Pound, ed., Catholic Anthology, London
War Poems from The Times, August 1914-1915
Contents to Some Imagist Poets anthology, the first of three books with the same title published in the next two years (includes English and American poets):
Richard Aldington: "Childhood", "The Poplar", "Round-Pond", "Daisy", "Epigrams", "The Faun sees Snow for the First Time", "Lemures"
H.D. (Hilda Doolittle): "The Pool", "The Garden", "Sea Lily", "Sea Iris", "Sea Rose", "Oread", "Orion Dead"
John Gould Fletcher: "The Blue Symphony", "London Excursion"
F. S. Flint: "Trees", "Lunch", "Malady", "Accident", "Fragment", "Houses", "Eau-Forte"
D. H. Lawrence: "Ballad of Another Ophelia", "Illicit", "Fireflies in the Corn", "A Woman and Her Dead Husband", "The Mowers", "Scent of Irises", "Green"
Amy Lowell: "Venus Transiens", "The Travelling Bear", "The Letter", "Grotesque", "Bullion", "Solitaire", "The Bombardment"
See also "Some Imagist Poets" subsection, above
Djuna Barnes, The Book of Repulsive Women, her first book of poems, which she described as a collection of "rhythms and drawings"
Stephen Vincent Benet, Five Men and Pompey
Adelaide Crapsey, Verse, featuring her invention of the quintain, a five-line form
T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock first published in Poetry magazine
John Gould Fletcher, Irradiations: Sand and Spray
Ring Lardner, Bib Ballads
Archibald MacLeish, Songs for a Summer's Day
Edgar Lee Masters, Spoon River Anthology
John G. Neihardt, The Song of Hugh Glass
Ezra Pound:
Cathay, American poet published in the United Kingdom
Editor, Catholic Anthology, London
Sara Teasdale, Rivers to the Sea
Roby Datta, Indian poet writing in English:
Poems: Pictures and Songs to which is prefixed "The Philosophy of Art" Calcutta: Das Gupta and Co.
Stories in blank verse to which is added an epic fragment, Calcutta: Das Gupta & Co.
Francis Ledwidge, Songs of the Fields, Irish author published in the United Kingdom
James Stephens, Irish author published in the United Kingdom:
The Adventures of Seumas Beg; The Rocky Road to Dublin
Sogns from the Clay
Guillaume Apollinaire, pen name of Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky, Case d'armons
Paul Claudel, Corona benignitatis anni dei
Oscar Vladislas de Lubicz-Milosz, also known as O. V. de L. Milosz, Poèmes
Pierre Reverdy, Poèmes en prose
Walter Flex, Sonne und Schilde, German
Yvan Goll, Élegies internationales: Pamphlets contre la guerre, German poet in Switzerland writing in French
Sir Muhammad Iqbal, Asrar-i-Khudi (Urdu: اسرار خودی) or The Secrets of the Self his first philosophical book of poetry, published in Persian
Vasily Kamensky, Stenka Razin (Стенька Разин), Russian
Wilhelm Klemm, Gloria: Kriegsgedichte aus dem Felde, German
Vladimir Mayakovsky, A Cloud in Trousers (Oblako v shtanakh), Russian
Narasinghrao, Smaranasamhita, an elegy to his son, Indian, writing in Gujarati
Barbu Nemțeanu, Stropi de soare, Romanian
Georg Trakl, Sebastian im Traum ("Sebastian in the Dream"); Austrian poet published in Germany
Awards and honors
Nobel Prize for Literature: Romain Rolland (French)
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
January 12 – Margaret Danner (died 1984), African-American
January 15 – Chaganti Somayajulu (died 1994), Indian, Tegulu-language short-story writer and poet
January 31 – Thomas Merton (died 1968), American poet, author and monk
March 12 – José Luis Rodríguez Vélez (died 1984), Panamanian composer, orchestra director, saxophonist, clarinetist and guitarist
April 21 – John Manifold (died 1985), Australian
April 22 – Hem Barua (died 1977), Indian, Assamese-language poet and politician
May 28 – Dorothy Auchterlonie (died 1991), Australian
May 30 – Michael Thwaites (died 2005), Australian poet, academic, intelligence officer and activist
May 31 – Judith Wright (died 2000), Australian
June 8
Kayyar Kinhanna Rai (died 2015), Indian
Ruth Stone (died 2011), American poet, recipient of 2002 National Book Award and 2002 Wallace Stevens Award
July 1 – Alun Lewis (killed 1944 on active service), Welsh war poet
July 7 – Margaret Walker (died 1998), African-American poet and novelist
July 16 – David Campbell (died 1979), Australian
August – Bawa Balwant (died 1973), Indian, Punjabi poet
August 4 – Patrick Anderson (died 1979), English-born Canadian
August 28 – Claude Roy, pen name of Claude Orland (died 1997), French poet, novelist, essayist, art critic and journalist; an activist in the Communist Party until his expulsion in 1956
November 3 – Eric Roach (suicide 1974), Caribbean poet from Tobago
November 8 – George Sutherland Fraser (died 1980), Scottish-born poet and critic
December 8 – Nikos Gatsos (died 1992), Greek
December 22 – David Martin (died 1997), Australian
December 27 – John Cornford (killed 1936 in Spanish Civil War), English
December 31 – Sam Ragan (died 1996), American poet and journalist, North Carolina Poet Laureate, 1982–1996
Also:
Nanina Alba (died 1968), African-American
Akhtarul Imam, Indian, Urdu-language poet in the "Halqa-i-Arba-i Zauq" movement
K. S. Narasimha Swami, better known as "K.S. NA", Indian, Kannada-language poet
Manmohan, pen name of Gopal Narhar Natu, Indian, Marathi-language poet
Nand Lal Ambardar (died 1973), Indian, Kashmiri-language poet
Palagummi Padmaraju (died 1983), short-story writer, poet, film-industry writer
Prabhu Chugani, "Wafa", Indian, Sindhi-language poet
Rameshvar Shukla, pen name: Anchal, wrote in Khadi Boli and Braj Bhasa dialects of Hindi, poet, short-story writer and novelist
Sumitra Kumari Sinha, Indian, Hindi-language poet and short-story writer
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
January 3 – James Elroy Flecker (born 1884), English poet, novelist and dramatist, from tuberculosis in Switzerland
February 8 – Takashi Nagatsuka 長塚 節 (born 1879), Japanese poet and novelist
December 1 – Stuart Merrill (born 1863), American Symbolist poet writing in French, from heart disease
Also
Hortensia Antommarchi (born 1850), Colombian poet
Edmond Laforest (born 1876), Haitian French language poet, suicide
V. C. Balakrishna Panikker (born 1889), Indian, Malayalam-language poet
see also "Poets and World War I" in the "Events" section and Rudyard Kipling poem "My Boy Jack", above
April 23
Rupert Brooke, English poet and writer, 27, died of septic pneumonia from an infected mosquito bite while sailing with the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force off the island of Lemnos in the Aegean on its way to Gallipoli
Robert W. Sterling, Scottish poet, 21, killed in action
May 8 – Walter Lyon, Scottish war poet, 28, missing in action
May 26 – Julian Grenfell, English war poet, 27, killed at Ypres
July 30 – Gerald William Grenfell, English war poet, 25, killed in action
September 1 – August Stramm, German poet and playwright, 41, killed in action on the Eastern Front
October 13 – Charles Sorley, British poet, 20, shot in the head by a sniper, at the Battle of Loos in France
December 23 – Roland Leighton, English war poet, 20, died of wounds in Casualty Clearing Station at Louvencourt, having been shot through the stomach by a sniper at Hébuterne
