—From A Prayer for My Daughter by W. B. Yeats, first published this year
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).
April 2 — Vladimir Nabokov, novelist and poet, leaves Russia with his family.
October — W. B. Yeats travels to the United States and begins a lecture tour lasting until May, 1920.
December — The Egoist, a London literary magazine founded by Dora Marsden which published early modernist works, including those of James Joyce, goes defunct.
Two paintings by E. E. Cummings appear in a show of the New York Society of Independent Artists.
The journal Littérature founded in France by André Breton, Philippe Soupault and Louis Aragon.
Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) writes Notes on Thought and Vision, a prose work; published posthumously in 1982.
Edwin James Brady, The House of the Winds
John Le Gay Brereton, The Burning Marl, dedicated to "All who have fought nobly"
C. J. Dennis, Jim of the Hills
Shaw Neilson, Heart of Spring, Sydney, Bookfellow
Charles G.D. Roberts, New Poems. (London: Constable).
Swami Ananda Acharya, Snow-birds, London: Macmillan, Indian poetry in English
Harindranath Chattopadhyaya, The Coloured Garden, Adyar, Madras: The Commonwealth Office; India, Indian poetry in English
Ardeshir M. Modi, Spring Blossoms, London: Arthur H. Stockwell
Nanikram Vasanmal Thadani, Krishna's Flute and Other Poems, Bombay: Longmans
Richard AldingtonImages of Desire
Images of War
Swami Ananda Acharya, Snow-birds, London: Macmillan, Indian poetry in English
Eva Dobell, A Bunch of Cotswold Grasses
John Drinkwater, Loyalties
T. S. Eliot, Ara Vos Prec, including "Gerontion" and the poems later published in Poems – 1920; his "Tradition and the Individual Talent" appears in The Egoist
Ivor Gurney, War's Embers
F. W. Harvey, Ducks
Rudyard Kipling, The Years Between
C. S. Lewis, writing as Clive Hamilton, Spirits in Bondage: a cycle of lyrics
Bertram Lloyd, ed., The Paths of Glory: a collection of poems written during the War 1914–1919
Rose Macaulay, Three Days
Carola Oman, The Menin Road, and other poems
Ezra Pound, Quia Pauper Amavi
Siegfried Sassoon, The War Poems of Sigfried Sassoon
Dora Sigerson (posthumous), Sixteen Dead Men, and Other Ballads of Easter Week
Osbert Sitwell, Argonaut and Juggernaut
J. C. Squire, The Birds and Other Poems
W. B. Yeats, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom:
The Wild Swans at Coole, significant revision of the 1917 edition: has the poems from the 1917 edition and others, including "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" and "The Phases of the Moon"; contains: "The Wild Swans at Coole", "Ego Dominus Tuus", "The Scholars" and "On being asked for a War Poem"
Two Plays for Dancers, (see also, Four Plays for Dancers, published in 1921)
John Jay Chapman, Songs and Poems
Babette Deutsch, Banners
Vachel Lindsay, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, a poem chronicling William Jennings Bryan's 1896 presidential campaign through the eyes of an idealistic sixteen-year-old
Amy Lowell, Pictures of a Floating World
Edgar Lee Masters, Starved Rock
John G. Neihardt, The Song of Three Friends
Ezra Pound, Quia Pauper Amavi
John Crowe Ransom, Poems About God
Charles Reznikoff, Rhythms II, including "The Idiot"
Louis Untermeyer, editor, Modern American Poetry, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe; anthology, more than 130 poems, including "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight", by Vachel Lindsay and verse by Ezra Pound, Sara Teasdale, Stephen Vincent Benét, and Emily Dickinson
John Hall Wheelock, Dust and Light
W. B. Yeats, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom:
The Wild Swans at Coole, significant revision of the 1917 edition: has the poems from the 1917 edition and others, including the title poem and:"An Irish Airman Foresees His Death"
"The Phases of the Moon"
"Ego Dominus Tuus"
"The Scholars"
"On being asked for a War Poem" (originally written on February 6, 1915, in response to a request by Henry James that Yeats compose a political poem about World War I and sent to James in a letter that year; first published in Edith Wharton's volume, The Book of the Homeless 1916, with minute differences in wording from the later version but under the significantly different title "A Reason for Keeping Silent")
Two Plays for Dancers, (see also, Four Plays for Dancers, published in 1921)
A Prayer For My Daughter, first published in the November issue of Poetry magazine (later published in Michael Robartes and the Dancer in 1921)
Paul Claudel, La Messe là-bas
Léon-Paul Fargue, Poèmes
Yvan Goll, ed., Le coeur de l’ennemi: Anthologie de poèmes contre la guerre
Max Jacob, La Defense de Tartuffe
Francis Jammes, La Vierge et les sonnets, Paris: Mercure de France
Pierre Reverdy, La Guitare endormie
Including all of the British colonies that later became India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Listed alphabetically by first name, regardless of surname:
Ardoshir Faramji Kharbardar, Bharatno Tankar (Parsi writing in Gujarati)
Basavaraju Appa Rao, Selayeti ganamu, Telugu-language
Duvvuri Rami Reddi, Krsivaludu, has been called the most prominent poem of the Telugu-language romantic movement; depicts peasants and rural life
Gopala Krishna Pattanayak, Gopalakrsna Padyabali, Oriya-language, vaishnav lyrics, posthumous edition
Jammuneshwar Khataniyar, Arun, her first collection of poems, Indian, Assamese-language
Kumaran Asan, Malayalam-language:
Cintavistayaya Sita ("Sita's Story"),
Prarodanam, elegy on the death of A. R. Rajara Varma, a poet, critic and scholar; similar to Percy Bysshe Shelley's Adonais but with a distinctly Indian philosophical attitude
Nilkanth Sharma Dal, Ramayana, Kashmiri-language poem based for the most part on the Ramacarita-Manas of Tulsidas
Syama Sundara Das, editor, Parmala Raso, Hindi-language epic poem; written in a language mixing Brjibhasa, Kannauji and Bundeli, published by Kashi Nagari Pracharini Sabha
Juan Ramón Jiménez, Piedra y cielo ("Stone and Sky"), Spain
Ramón del Valle Inclán, La pipa de Kif ("Kif's Pipe"), Spain
Alfonsina Storni, Without Remedy, Argentina
Khalil Gibran, The Procession, long ode, Arabic
Charles Gill, Le Cap Éternité: suivi des Étoiles filantes; French language;, Canada
Kitahara Kakushu, Heretics, Japan
Angiolo Silvio Novaro, Il Fabbro armonioso ("The Harmonious Blacksmith"), Italy
Kurt Pinthus, editor, Menscheitsdämerung ("The Twilight of Mankind"), anthology of Expressionist poetry, published in Berlin, Germany
Anton Schnack, Strophen der Gier ("Verses of greed"), Der Abenteurer ("The adventurer") and Die tausend Gelächter ("The thousand laughs"), Germany
Kurt Schwitters, "An Anna Blume" ("To Anna Flower" also translated as "To Eve Blossom"), widely noticed and controversial work variously described as a parody of a love poem, an emblem of the chaos and madness of the era, and as a harbinger of a new poetic language; much parodied; originally published in August in Der Sturm magazine, then later in the year in Schwitters' book, Anna Blume, Dichtungen, published by Verlag Paul Steegemann, Hannover (revised edition 1922), Germany
Edith Sodergran, Gaudy Observations, Sweden
August Stramm, Tropfblut, Germany, posthumous
Giuseppe Ungaretti, Allegria di naufragi ("The Joy of Shipwrecks") and La guerra ("The War"), Italy
Awards and honors
Nobel Prize in Literature: Carl Friedrich Georg Spitteler, Swiss poet and novelist
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Margaret Widdemer, Old Road to Paradise and Carl Sandburg, Corn Huskers
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
January 7 – Robert Duncan (died 1988), American poet associated with the Black Mountain poets and the beat generation, and a key player in the San Francisco Renaissance
January 9 – William Morris Meredith, Jr. (died 2007), American poet
January 14
Kaifi Azmi (died 2002), Indian, Hindi- and Urdu-language poet lyricist and songwriter
Syed Abdul Malik (died 2000), Indian, Assamese-language short-story writer and poet
January 19 – Joan Brossa (died 1998), Spanish Catalan poet
January 20 – Silva Kaputikyan (died 2006), Armenian poet
February 12 – Subhash Mukhopadhyay (died 2003), Bengali poet and Marxist (surname: Mukhopadhyay)
March 17 – Abdul Rahman Pazhwak, عبدالرحمن پژواک (died 1995), Afghan, Pashto-language poet, novelist, playwright and diplomat
March 24 – Lawrence Ferlinghetti, born Lawrence Ferling, American beat poet, painter and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers
April 15 – Emyr Humphreys, Welsh novelist, playwright and poet
April 17 – J. Rodolfo Wilcock (died 1978), Argentine-born author, poet and translator
May 28 – May Swenson (died 1989), American poet and playwright
July 19 – Miltos Sachtouris, Μίλτος Σαχτούρης (died 2005), Greek
August 30 – Jiří Orten, born Jiří Ohrenstein (died 1941), Czech
August 31 – Amrita Pritam (died 2005), Punjabi poet and novelist; a woman
September 2 – Binod Chandra Nayak, Indian, Oriya-language poet
September 3 - Edwin Honig (died 2011), American poet, critic and translator known for his English renditions of seminal works of Spanish and Portuguese literature
September 7 – Louise Bennett-Coverley, aka "Miss Lou" (died 2006), Jamaican folklorist, writer and poet
September 18 – M. Govindan (died 1988), Indian, Malayalam-language poet, short-story writer, playwright and essayist
September 26 – Matilde Camus (died 2012), Spanish poet and researcher
September 29 - Ruth Dallas, born Ruth Mumford (died 2008), New Zealand poet
October 1 – G. D. Madgulkar (died 1978), Indian, Marathi-language poet, songwriter and short-story writer
November 4 – Patricia Beer (died 1999), English poet and critic
November 18 – Madeline DeFrees (died 2015), American poet
Also:
Lance Jeffers (died 1985), African American
Michalis Katsaros (died 1998), Greek
Kuroda Saburu, Japanese (surname: Kuroda)
Bani Ray, Bengali writer, novelist, poet and critic, a woman
Buddhidhari Singha, Maithili-language poet and fiction writer
Girija Kumar Mathur (died 1994), Indian, Hindi-language poet
Yoshioka Minoru (died 1990), Japanese (surname: Yoshioka)
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
January 4 – Matilda Betham-Edwards (born 1836), English novelist, travel writer, poet and children's book author
January 15 – Benjamin Paul Blood (born 1832), American philosopher and poet
January 23 – Ram Ganesh Gadkari, writing poetry as Govindagraj (born 1885), Indian, Marathi-language poet, playwright and humorist
January 27 – Endre Ady (born 1877), Hungarian
February 5 – William Michael Rossetti (born 1839), English poet and essayist
May 24 – Amado Nervo (died 1870), Mexican
August 31 – Jóhann Sigurjónsson (born 1880), Icelandic playwright and poet
October 6 – Ricardo Palma (born 1833), Peruvian novelist, playwright, poet, essayist and writer of short fiction
October 30 – Ella Wheeler Wilcox (born 1850), American
December 22 – Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt (born 1836), American
Also:
Akshay Kumar Boral (born 1860), Indian, Bengali-language poet
Brij Raj (born 1847), Indian, Dogri-Pahadi Brajbhasha poet
Ganesh Janardan Agasha (born 1852), Indian, Marathi-language poet and literary critic
Narayan Waman Tilak (born 1861), Indian, Marathi-language Christian poet
