Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).
January 20 — Chittadhar Hridaya begins a 6-year sentence of imprisonment in Kathmandu for writing poetry in Nepal Bhasa during which time he secretly composes his Buddhist epic Sugata Saurabha in the same language.Spring — The Antioch Review is founded as a literary magazine at Antioch College in OhioMay 5 — Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin meet while both reading English at St John's College, OxfordAugust 18 — 19-year-old Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr., American poet serving in Britain with the Royal Canadian Air Force (which he has joined before the United States has officially entered World War II), flies a high-altitude test flight in a Spitfire V from RAF Llandow in Wales and afterwards writes the sonnet "High Flight" about the experience (completed by September 3); on December 11 he dies in a collision over England.September 6–7 — Under Nazi occupation, Yiddish poet Abraham Sutzkever is among the Polish Jews interned in the Vilna Ghetto. He will escape and join the resistance in 1943. During the Nazi era, Sutzkever writes over 80 poems, whose manuscripts he manages to save for postwar publicationc. October — The first known reference to Babi Yar in poetry is written soon after the Babi Yar massacres by the young Jewish-Ukrainian poet from Kiev and an eyewitness, Liudmila Titova (Ukrainian: Людмила Титова). Her poem "Babi Yar" will be discovered only in the 1990sDecember — During the Siege of Leningrad, Yakov Druskin, ill and starving, and Maria Malich, the second wife of Russian avant-garde poet Danil Kharms (arrested this summer on suspicion of treason and imprisoned in the psychiatric ward at Leningrad Prison No. 1 where he will die in 1942), trudge across the city to Kharms' bombed-out apartment building and collect a trunk full of manuscripts which they hide through the 1940s and 1950s, even bringing them to Siberia, then covertly show them to others in the 1960s. Their actions save much of Kharms' work for posterity as well as that of fellow poet Alexander Vvedensky (of whom only about a quarter of his output survives). Vvedensky, arrested in September in Kharkov for "counterrevolutionary agitation", was evacuated but died of pleurisy en routeThe surrealist magazine VVV is founded in New York City by French poet André Breton and Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst and David HareListed by nation where the work was first published and again by the poet's native land, if different; substantially revised works listed separately:
Anne Marriott, Calling Adventurers!, Toronto: Ryerson Press.E. J. Pratt, Dunkirk, Toronto: Macmillan.Bertram Warr, Yet a Little Onwards, Broadsheet No. 3, Resurgam Younger Poets series, Favil Press.Sri Aurobindo, Poems ( Poetry in English ), Hydrabad: Government Central PressBimal Chandra Bose, Thought-Ray ( Poetry in English ), Calcutta: Biman Panthi Publishing HouseBaldoon Dhingra, Comes Ever the Dawn ( Poetry in English ), Lahore: Ripon PressManjeri Sundaraman, Brief Orisons ( Poetry in English ), Madras: Hurley PressThurairajah Tambimuttu, editor, Out of This War ( Poetry in English ), London: Fortune Press; anthology; Indian poetry published in the United Kingdom Hariprasad Sastri, editor and translator, Indian Mystic Verse, (3rd revised and enlarged edition 1984) anthologyW. H. Auden, New Year Letter (sometimes incorrectly called New Year Letters, with an "s"), May (published as The Double Man in the United States in March), English poet living in the United StatesLaurence Binyon, The North Star, and Other PoemsEdmund Blunden, Poems 1930–1940Lilian Bowes Lyon, Tomorrow is a RevealingT. S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages, published in New English Weekly, republished in Four Quartets, 1944G. S. Fraser, The Fatal Landscape and Other PoemsRobert Greacen, The Bird, Northern Ireland poetJ. F. Hendry and Henry Treece, editors, The White Horseman, poetry anthology featuring poets in the New Apocalyptics movementLouis MacNeice, Plant and PhantomJohn Pudney, "For Johnny"W. R. Rodgers, Awake! and Other Poems, Northern Ireland poetAlan Ross, Summer ThunderA. L. Rowse, Poems of a DecadeSydney Goodsir Smith, Skail Wind, in Scots and EnglishTambimuttu, editor, Out of This War, London: Fortune Press; anthology; Indian poetry in English, published in the United Kingdom Terence Tiller, Poems, New Hogarth Library 5Vernon Watkins, The Ballad of the Mari Lwyd, and Other PoemsW. H. Auden, The Double Man, published in March; later published as New Year Letter in the United Kingdom in May; English poet living in the United StatesStephen Vincent Benet, A Summons to the FreeJohn Peale Bishop, Selected PoemsLouise Bogan, Poems and New PoemsPaul Engle, West of MidnightKenneth Fearing, Dagger of the MindJohn Gould Fletcher, South StarRobinson Jeffers, Be Angry at the SunEdgar Lee Masters, Illinois PoemsJosephine Miles, Poems on Several OccasionsEdna St. Vincent Millay, Collected SonnetsMarianne Moore, What Are YearsJohn G. Neihardt, The Song of Jed SmithCarl Rakosi, Selected PoemsJohn Crowe Ransom, The New Criticism, criticismCharles Reznikoff, Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down, self-publishedTheodore Roethke, Open HouseWinfield Townley Scott, Wind the ClockRidgely Torrence, PoemsMark Van Doren, The Mayfield DeerWilliam Carlos Williams, The Broken SpanLouis Zukofsky, 55 PoemsAllen Curnow, Island Time (Caxton), New ZealandLesbia Harford (d. 1927), The Poems of Lesbia Harford, AustraliaRex Ingamells and John Ingamells, At a Boundary, Adelaide, written by two brothers, includes Reginald Ingamells' "The Gangrened People", AustraliaDonagh MacDonagh, Veterans, and other poems, IrelandR. A. K. Mason, The Dark Will Lighten, New ZealandListed by nation where the work was first published and again by the poet's native land, if different; substantially revised works listed separately:
Louis Aragon, Le Creve-CoeurPaul Éluard, pen name of Eugène Grindel, Le Livre ouvert, published from 1940 to this yearLuc Estang, Puissance du matinLéon-Paul Fargue, Haute SolitudeIncluding all of the British colonies that later became India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Listed alphabetically by first name, regardless of surname:
Girija Kumar Mathur, Manjir, Indian, HindiSumitra Kumari Sinha, Vihag, HindiSyed Kalbe Mustapha, Malik Muhammad Ja'isi, biography in Urdu of Malik Mohammad Jaisi, a Hindi poet of the 15th century, with descriptions of the poet's worksAbanindranath Tagore and Rani Chanda, a memoir describing the lives of the family that included Rabindranath Tagore; a companion volume to Joda Sakor Dhare 1944 and Apan Katha 1946; BengaliAnanta Pattanayak, Tarpana Kare Aji, Indian, Oriya-languageBaidyanath Mishra, also known as "Yatri", a dramatic monologue given by a child-widow character, told in colloquial language, a new development in Maithili poetryBewa Balwant, Maha Nac, Punjabi-language poems inspired by Marxist and left-leaning politicsDarshan Singh Awara, Main Bagi Han, Punjabi-language poems reflecting anger toward society as well as religious traditions and institutionsDimbeshwar Neog, Svahid Karbala, Assamese-language narrative poem on a tragedy at Karbala and the martyrdom of HussainJyotsna Shukla, Akashnan Phool, Indian poet writing in GujaratiFaiz Ahmad Faiz, Naqsh-e-Faryadi, Indian, Urdu-languageHari Daryani, Hariscandra Jivana Katha, Sindhi-language (India)M. U. Malkani, Gitanjali, translation into Sindhi from the English of Rabindranath Thakur's book of the same nameMohammad Mumtaz Ali, Amir Minasi, biography of the Urdu poet Amir Minai (1828–1900), including descriptions of Minai's works; written in UrduNarayan Bezbarua, Sakti Singa, Indian, AssamesePritam Singh Safir, Kattak Kunjam, Indian, Punjabi-languageSri Chandra Singh, "Vadali", a Rajasthani-language nature poem in 130 verses which influenced Rajasthani poets for a generationWahab Pare of Hajin, Kashmiri Shahnama Firdosi, an adaptation in Kashmiri of the Persian classic poem by Firdousi; with a canto added at the endJosé Santos Chocano, Oro de Indias, PeruGerardo Diego, Alondra de verdad ("True Lark"), 42 sonnets on diverse topics; SpainFederico García Lorca, Diván del Tamarit (Spanish for "The Diván of Tamarit", written in 1936, published posthumously this year; SpainGabriela Mistral, Antología: Selección de Gabriela Mistral, Santiago, Chile: Zig ZagAmir Hamzah, Buah Rindu, Dutch East IndiesPier Paolo Pasolini, Versi a Casarsa, Friulian poetry published in ItalyAwards and honors
Governor General's Award, poetry or drama: Calling Adventurers, Anne Marriott (Canada)Frost Medal: Robert FrostPulitzer Prize for Poetry: Leonard Bacon: Sunderland CaptureDeath years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
February 7 – Kevin Crossley-Holland, English poet and children's authorFebruary 19 – Stephen Dobyns, American poet and novelistMarch 1 – Robert Hass, American poetMarch 21 – Abdulla Oripov (died 2016), Uzbek poet and statesmanMarch 22 – Billy Collins, American poet who served two terms as the 44th Poet Laureate of the United States (2001–2003)April 12 – Toi Derricotte, American poetApril 18 – Michael D. Higgins, Irish President, academic and poetApril 29 (probable date) – Yusef Komunyakaa, American poet, academic and recipient of the 1994 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and 1995 Pulitzer Prize for PoetryMay 17 – Lyn Hejinian, American poet, essayist, translator and publisher often associated with the Language poetsMay 24 – Bob Dylan (Robert Allen Zimmerman), American singer-songwriter and recipient of the 2016 Nobel Prize in LiteratureMay 27 – Simon J. Ortiz, Native American poet and writer associated with the Native American RenaissanceAugust 4 – Robert Grenier, American poet essayist, and editor often associated with the Language poetsSeptember 1 – Gwendolyn MacEwen (died 1987), Canadian novelist and poetOctober 2 – John Sinclair, American poet jailed in 1969 after selling two joints to undercover narcotics officers; in 1971 his case receives international attention when John Lennon performs at a benefit concert on his behalfOctober 13 – John Snow, English cricketer and poetOctober 20 – Stewart Parker (died 1988), Northern Irish poet and playwrightOctober 27 – Rodolfo Hinostroza (died 2016), Peruvian poet, writer, journalist, food critic and astrologerNovember 8 – David MacLeod Black, South African-born Scots poetNovember 23 – Derek Mahon, Irish poetNovember 29 – Lloyd Schwartz, American poetdate not known:Jonathan Holden, American poet and academicJeremy Hooker, English poet, critic, lecturer and broadcasterRachel Blau DuPlessis, American poet, essayist, critic and academicWilliam Pitt Root, American poetGibbons Ruark, American poetStephen Yenser, American poetBirth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
January 6 – F. R. Higgins (born 1896), Irish poetJanuary 13 – James Joyce (born 1882), Irish poet and novelistJanuary 23 – John Oxenham (William Arthur Dunkerley, born 1852), English novelist and poetFebruary 5 – A. B. (`Banjo') Paterson (born 1864), Australian bush poet, journalist and authorMarch 13 – Elizabeth Madox Roberts (born 1880), American novelist and poetMay 2 – Ibrahim Touqan إبراهيم طوقان (born 1905), Palestinian, Arab-language poetMay 19 – Lola Ridge (born 1873), American anarchist poet, editor of avant-garde, feminist, and Marxist publicationsJune 15 – Evelyn Underhill (born 1875), English poetAugust 7 – Rabindranath Tagore, 80 (born 1861), Bengali poet in India, Brahmo Samaj (syncretic Hindu monotheist) philosopher, visual artist, playwright, composer, and novelist whose works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (1913 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature)August 31 – Marina Tsvetaeva (born 1892), Soviet Russian poet, suicide by hangingSeptember 1 – Jiří Orten (born 1919), Czech poetOctober 1 – Aline Murray Kilmer (born 1888), American poet and children's writerNovember 18 – Émile Nelligan (born 1879), Canadian French language poetAlso – Alexander Vvedensky (born 1904), Russian poet (see Events section above) 
