—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 WindsJohn Le Gay Brereton, The Burning Marl, dedicated to "All who have fought nobly"C. J. Dennis, Jim of the HillsShaw Neilson, Heart of Spring, Sydney, BookfellowCharles G.D. Roberts, New Poems. (London: Constable).Swami Ananda Acharya, Snow-birds, London: Macmillan, Indian poetry in EnglishHarindranath Chattopadhyaya, The Coloured Garden, Adyar, Madras: The Commonwealth Office; India, Indian poetry in EnglishArdeshir M. Modi, Spring Blossoms, London: Arthur H. StockwellNanikram Vasanmal Thadani, Krishna's Flute and Other Poems, Bombay: LongmansRichard AldingtonImages of DesireImages of WarSwami Ananda Acharya, Snow-birds, London: Macmillan, Indian poetry in EnglishEva Dobell, A Bunch of Cotswold GrassesJohn Drinkwater, LoyaltiesT. S. Eliot, Ara Vos Prec, including "Gerontion" and the poems later published in Poems – 1920; his "Tradition and the Individual Talent" appears in The EgoistIvor Gurney, War's EmbersF. W. Harvey, DucksRudyard Kipling, The Years BetweenC. S. Lewis, writing as Clive Hamilton, Spirits in Bondage: a cycle of lyricsBertram Lloyd, ed., The Paths of Glory: a collection of poems written during the War 1914–1919Rose Macaulay, Three DaysCarola Oman, The Menin Road, and other poemsEzra Pound, Quia Pauper AmaviSiegfried Sassoon, The War Poems of Sigfried SassoonDora Sigerson (posthumous), Sixteen Dead Men, and Other Ballads of Easter WeekOsbert Sitwell, Argonaut and JuggernautJ. C. Squire, The Birds and Other PoemsW. 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 PoemsBabette Deutsch, BannersVachel Lindsay, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, a poem chronicling William Jennings Bryan's 1896 presidential campaign through the eyes of an idealistic sixteen-year-oldAmy Lowell, Pictures of a Floating WorldEdgar Lee Masters, Starved RockJohn G. Neihardt, The Song of Three FriendsEzra Pound, Quia Pauper AmaviJohn Crowe Ransom, Poems About GodCharles 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 DickinsonJohn Hall Wheelock, Dust and LightW. 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-basLéon-Paul Fargue, PoèmesYvan Goll, ed., Le coeur de l’ennemi: Anthologie de poèmes contre la guerreMax Jacob, La Defense de TartuffeFrancis Jammes, La Vierge et les sonnets, Paris: Mercure de FrancePierre Reverdy, La Guitare endormieIncluding 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-languageDuvvuri Rami Reddi, Krsivaludu, has been called the most prominent poem of the Telugu-language romantic movement; depicts peasants and rural lifeGopala Krishna Pattanayak, Gopalakrsna Padyabali, Oriya-language, vaishnav lyrics, posthumous editionJammuneshwar Khataniyar, Arun, her first collection of poems, Indian, Assamese-languageKumaran 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 attitudeNilkanth Sharma Dal, Ramayana, Kashmiri-language poem based for the most part on the Ramacarita-Manas of TulsidasSyama Sundara Das, editor, Parmala Raso, Hindi-language epic poem; written in a language mixing Brjibhasa, Kannauji and Bundeli, published by Kashi Nagari Pracharini SabhaJuan Ramón Jiménez, Piedra y cielo ("Stone and Sky"), SpainRamón del Valle Inclán, La pipa de Kif ("Kif's Pipe"), SpainAlfonsina Storni, Without Remedy, ArgentinaKhalil Gibran, The Procession, long ode, ArabicCharles Gill, Le Cap Éternité: suivi des Étoiles filantes; French language;, CanadaKitahara Kakushu, Heretics, JapanAngiolo Silvio Novaro, Il Fabbro armonioso ("The Harmonious Blacksmith"), ItalyKurt Pinthus, editor, Menscheitsdämerung ("The Twilight of Mankind"), anthology of Expressionist poetry, published in Berlin, GermanyAnton Schnack, Strophen der Gier ("Verses of greed"), Der Abenteurer ("The adventurer") and Die tausend Gelächter ("The thousand laughs"), GermanyKurt 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), GermanyEdith Sodergran, Gaudy Observations, SwedenAugust Stramm, Tropfblut, Germany, posthumousGiuseppe Ungaretti, Allegria di naufragi ("The Joy of Shipwrecks") and La guerra ("The War"), ItalyAwards and honors
Nobel Prize in Literature: Carl Friedrich Georg Spitteler, Swiss poet and novelistPulitzer Prize for Poetry: Margaret Widdemer, Old Road to Paradise and Carl Sandburg, Corn HuskersDeath 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 RenaissanceJanuary 9 – William Morris Meredith, Jr. (died 2007), American poetJanuary 14Kaifi Azmi (died 2002), Indian, Hindi- and Urdu-language poet lyricist and songwriterSyed Abdul Malik (died 2000), Indian, Assamese-language short-story writer and poetJanuary 19 – Joan Brossa (died 1998), Spanish Catalan poetJanuary 20 – Silva Kaputikyan (died 2006), Armenian poetFebruary 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 diplomatMarch 24 – Lawrence Ferlinghetti, born Lawrence Ferling, American beat poet, painter and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & PublishersApril 15 – Emyr Humphreys, Welsh novelist, playwright and poetApril 17 – J. Rodolfo Wilcock (died 1978), Argentine-born author, poet and translatorMay 28 – May Swenson (died 1989), American poet and playwrightJuly 19 – Miltos Sachtouris, Μίλτος Σαχτούρης (died 2005), GreekAugust 30 – Jiří Orten, born Jiří Ohrenstein (died 1941), CzechAugust 31 – Amrita Pritam (died 2005), Punjabi poet and novelist; a womanSeptember 2 – Binod Chandra Nayak, Indian, Oriya-language poetSeptember 3 - Edwin Honig (died 2011), American poet, critic and translator known for his English renditions of seminal works of Spanish and Portuguese literatureSeptember 7 – Louise Bennett-Coverley, aka "Miss Lou" (died 2006), Jamaican folklorist, writer and poetSeptember 18 – M. Govindan (died 1988), Indian, Malayalam-language poet, short-story writer, playwright and essayistSeptember 26 – Matilde Camus (died 2012), Spanish poet and researcherSeptember 29 - Ruth Dallas, born Ruth Mumford (died 2008), New Zealand poetOctober 1 – G. D. Madgulkar (died 1978), Indian, Marathi-language poet, songwriter and short-story writerNovember 4 – Patricia Beer (died 1999), English poet and criticNovember 18 – Madeline DeFrees (died 2015), American poetAlso:Lance Jeffers (died 1985), African AmericanMichalis Katsaros (died 1998), GreekKuroda Saburu, Japanese (surname: Kuroda)Bani Ray, Bengali writer, novelist, poet and critic, a womanBuddhidhari Singha, Maithili-language poet and fiction writerGirija Kumar Mathur (died 1994), Indian, Hindi-language poetYoshioka 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 authorJanuary 15 – Benjamin Paul Blood (born 1832), American philosopher and poetJanuary 23 – Ram Ganesh Gadkari, writing poetry as Govindagraj (born 1885), Indian, Marathi-language poet, playwright and humoristJanuary 27 – Endre Ady (born 1877), HungarianFebruary 5 – William Michael Rossetti (born 1839), English poet and essayistMay 24 – Amado Nervo (died 1870), MexicanAugust 31 – Jóhann Sigurjónsson (born 1880), Icelandic playwright and poetOctober 6 – Ricardo Palma (born 1833), Peruvian novelist, playwright, poet, essayist and writer of short fictionOctober 30 – Ella Wheeler Wilcox (born 1850), AmericanDecember 22 – Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt (born 1836), AmericanAlso:Akshay Kumar Boral (born 1860), Indian, Bengali-language poetBrij Raj (born 1847), Indian, Dogri-Pahadi Brajbhasha poetGanesh Janardan Agasha (born 1852), Indian, Marathi-language poet and literary criticNarayan Waman Tilak (born 1861), Indian, Marathi-language Christian poet