Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).
January 23 — English poet Robert Graves marries the painter Nancy Nicholson in London. Wedding guests include Wilfred Owen, who will be killed by the end of the year, and whose first nationally published poem appears 3 days later ("Miners" in The Nation).
April — Hu Shih, chief advocate of the revolution in Chinese literature at this time, publishes an essay, "Constructive Literary Revolution - A Literature of National Speech" in New Youth proposing a four-point reform program.
June — English poet Basil Bunting is imprisoned as a conscientious objector.
August 17 — English poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon meet for the last time, in London, and spend what Sassoon later describes as "the whole of a hot cloudless afternoon together."
November 4 — English war poet Wilfred Owen is killed in action, aged 25, at the Sambre–Oise Canal with only five of his poems published. News of his death reaches his parents in Oswestry a week later on Armistice Day.
—Closing line of "Anthem for Doomed Youth" by Wilfred Owen
December — The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins (d. 1889; including The Wreck of the Deutschland, 1875/6) are published by his friend Robert Bridges; few were published in Hopkins's lifetime, so this presents his innovative sprung rhythm and imagery to many readers for the first time.
Marie Joussaye, Selections from Anglo-Saxon Songs.
Wilson MacDonald, The Song Of The Prairie Land and Other Poems. Albert E. S. Smythe intr., Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.
The Bengali Writers of English Verse: A Record and an Appreciation, Calcutta: Thacker, Spink U Co., 1918.; London: Longmans, Green and Co., 119 pages; anthology; Indian poetry in English, published in the United Kingdom
Harindranath Chattopadhyaya, The Feast of Youth, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House; India, Indian poetry in English
Baldoon Dhingra, Symphony of Love, Cambridge: Bowes and Bowes; Indian poet, writing in English, published in the United Kingdom
Theodore Douglas Dunn, editor, The Bengali Book of English Verse, Bombay: Longmans, Green and Co.; anthology; Indian poetry in English
Marian Allen, The Wind on the Downs
Laurence Binyon, The New World: Poems
Vera Brittain, Verses of a VAD
Rupert Brooke, The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke
Émile Cammaerts, Messines and other Poems, Belgian-born poet writing in English
Walter de la Mare, Motley, and Other Poems
Baldoon Dhingra, Symphony of Love, Cambridge: Bowes and Bowes; Indian poet, writing in English, published in the United Kingdom
Eleanor Farjeon, Sonnets and Poems
Wilfrid Gibson, Whin
Oliver St. John Gogarty, The Ship, and Other Poems
Helen Hamilton, Napoo!
A. P. Herbert, The Bomber Gipsy, and Other Poems
Gerard Manley Hopkins (posthumous), Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins
C. Morton Horne ("killed in action January 27, 1916"), Songs of the Shrapnel Shell, and Other Verse, Irish poet published simultaneously in the United States and United Kingdom
Ford Madox Hueffer, On Heaven, and Poems written on active service
Aldous Huxley, The Defeat of Youth, and Other Poems
Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, Rough Rhymes of a Padre
D. H. Lawrence, New Poems
Ewart Alan Mackintosh (posthumous), War, The Liberator, and Other Pieces, Scottish poet
Susan Miles, Dunch
Margaret Postgate, Margaret Postgate's Poems
Morley Roberts, War Lyrics
Siegfried Sassoon, Counter-Attack and Other Poems
Fredegond Shove, Dreams and Journeys
Dora Sigerson, The Sad Years and Other Poems
Edith Sitwell, Clowns' Houses
Sacheverell Sitwell, The People's Palace
Geoffrey Bache Smith (posthumous), A Spring Harvest (edited with preface by J. R. R. Tolkien)
J. C. Squire, Poems, First Series
Edward Thomas, Last Poems
Katharine Tynan, Herb o' Grace, poems in war-time
Arthur Waley, editor and translator, One Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems, anthology
W. B. Yeats, Nine Poems, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom
Conrad Aiken, The Charnel Rose, Senlin: A Biography, and Other Poems
Sherwood Anderson, Mid-American Chants
Stephen Vincent Benet, Young Adventure
John Gould Fletcher, The Tree of Life
Amy Lowell, Can Grande's Castle
Edgar Lee Masters, Toward the Gulf
Charles Reznikoff, Rhythms, his first book of poetry, a small volume, self-published
Lola Ridge, The Ghetto and Other Poems
Carl Sandburg, Cornhuskers, Holt, Rinehart and Winston
Wallace Stevens, "Le Monocle de Mon Oncle" is first published (it will later be included in his first poetry book, Harmonium.
C. J. Dennis, Australia:
Digger Smith
Backblock Ballads and Later Verses
W. B. Yeats, Nine Poems, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom
Guillaume Apollinaire, pen name of Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky, Calligrammes, France
Jean Cocteau, Le Cap de Bonne Espérance, about the author's experience as a trapeze artist, written in vers brisés
Henri de Régnier, 1914–1916: poésies
Max Jacob, Le Cornet à Dès
Oscar Vladislas de Lubicz-Milosz, also known as O. V. de L. Milosz, Adramandoni
Pierre Reverdy,
Les Ardoises du toit
Les Jockeys camouflés
Tristan Tzara, pen name of Sami Rosenstock, Vingt-cinq poèmes
Gerardo Diego, El romancero de la novia ("The Bride's Ballads"), Spain
Federico García Lorca, Impressiones y paisajes ("Impressions and Landscapes"), Spain
César Vallejo, Los heraldos negros ("The Black Heralds" ) the author's first book is "a bitter interpretation of provincial life" which "represented a break with symbolism and had a profound effect upon contemporary poetry in Peru
Aleksandr Blok, The Twelve, (Russian: Двенадцать, Dvenadtsat), a controversial long poem, one of the first poetic responses to Russia's 1917 October Revolution
Deva Kanta Barua, Sagar dekhisa, Indian, Assamese language
Miloš Crnjanski, Лирика Итаке ("Lyrics of Ithaca"), Serbian Cyrillic
Aaro Hellaakoski, Nimettömiä lauluja, Finland
Sir Muhammad Iqbal, Rumuz-e-Bekhudi (The Secrets of Selflessness) published in Persian, his second philosophical poetry book
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
February 1 – Muriel Spark (died 2006), Scottish novelist and poet
February 17 – William Bronk (died 1999), American poet
April 15 – Louis Coxe (died 1993), American poet
April 23 – James Kirkup (died 2009), English poet, translator and travel writer
May 10 – Jane Mayhall (died 2009), American poet and novelist
May 21 – Gopal Prasad Rimal (died 1973), Indian, Nepali-language poet and playwright
July 9 – John Heath-Stubbs (died 2006), English poet and translator
August 23 – Vinda Karandikar, also known as C. V. Karandikar (died 2010), Indian, Marathi-language poet, critic and translator
August 31 – Shimizu Motoyoshi 清水基吉 (died 2008), Japanese Showa and Heisei period novelist and poet (surname: Shimizu)
September 30 – Gevorg Emin Գևորգ Էմին (died 1998), Armenian
November 16 – Nicholas Moore (died 1986), English poet, associated with the New Apocalyptics in the 1940s, who later drops out of the literary world
November 19 – W. S. Graham (died 1986), Scottish poet often associated with Dylan Thomas and the neo-romantic poets
December 8 – Hans Børli (died 1989), Norwegian poet, novelist and writer
December 30 – Al Purdy (died 2000), popular Canadian poet
Also:
M. Gopalakrishna Adiga (died 1992), Indian, Kannada-language poet often said to be the pioneer of the "navya" (modernist) literary movement in Karnataka
Indra Dev Bhojvani, also known as "Indur", Indian, Sindhi-language
Ram Narain Singh Dardi, Indian, Punjabi-language poet who wrote in the Lahndi dialect
Valentin Iremonger (died 1991), Irish poet and diplomat
Maheswar Neog, Indian, Assamese-language scholar and poet
Siddayya Puranika, Indian, Kannada-language poet
Amritdhari Singha, Indian, Maithili-language writer, philosopher and poet
Note two subsections, below. Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
January 1 – Wilfred Campbell (born c.1860), Canadian poet
January 6 – Dora Sigerson (born 1866), Irish poet
June 10 – Arrigo Boito (born 1842), Italian poet, journalist, novelist and composer
June 26 – Peter Rosegger (born 1843), Austrian poet
September 18 – Saul Adadi (born 1850), Libyan Sephardi Jewish hakham, rosh yeshiva and writer of piyyutim
October 12 – Mary Hannay Foott (born 1846), Australian poet
December 23 – Thérèse Schwartze (born 1851), Dutch portrait painter and poet
Also:
A. R. Raja Raja Varma (born 1863), Indian, Malayalam-language poet, grammarian, scholar, critic and writer; nephew of Kerala Varma Valiya Koil Thampuran
Balakavi, pen name of Tryambak Bapuji Thomare (born 1890), Indian, Marathi-language poet; died in a train accident
Gobinda Rath (born 1848), Indian, Oriya-language poet and satirist
Govind Vasudev Kanitkar (born 1854), Indian, Marathi-language poet and translator
January 28 – John McCrae (born 1872), Canadian poet, author of "In Flanders Fields" and lieutenant colonel serving as a field surgeon in the war, from pneumonia
April 1 – Isaac Rosenberg (born 1890), English war poet, killed in Fampoux in the Somme at dawn (there is a dispute as to whether his death occurred at the hands of a sniper or in close combat); first buried in a mass grave, but in 1926, his remains are identified and reinterred at Bailleul Road East Cemetery Plot V, St. Laurent-Blangy, Pas de Calais, France
July 30 – Joyce Kilmer (born 1886), American, killed in Second Battle of the Marne in France after volunteering to join Major William "Wild Bill" Donovan's First Battalion to lead the day's attack; while scouting, Kilmer is shot in the head near the village of Seringes; posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre
November 4 – Wilfred Owen (born 1893), English war poet, killed in action in France (see Events above)
John Munro (Iain Rothach) (born 1889), Scottish Gaelic poet, killed serving with the Seaforth Highlanders
See also Guillaume Apollinaire below
Died in the 1918 flu pandemic
October 21 – E. J. Luce (born 1881), Jèrriais poet and journalist
November 9 – Guillaume Apollinaire (born 1880), French language poet, writer and art critic credited with coining the word surrealism, dies two years after being wounded in World War I and still vulnerable from his injury
December 2 – Edmond Rostand (born 1868), French poet and dramatist
Awards and honors
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Sara Teasdale: Love Songs
