Robert Creeley founds and edits the Black Mountain Review
Publication of American literary theorist William Kurtz Wimsatt, Jr.'s collected essays Verbal Icon: Studies in the Meaning of Poetry, including the influential critical essays “The Intentional Fallacy” and “The Affective Fallacy” cowritten with Monroe Beardsley.
Jack Kerouac reads Dwight Goddard's A Buddhist Bible, which will influence him greatly.
January 25 — Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood is broadcast on BBC Radio.
Listed by nation where the work was first published and again by the poet's native land, if different; substantially revised works listed separately:
Daryl Hine, Five Poems
Irving Layton, In the Midst of My Fever. Palma de Mallorca, Spain: Divers Press.
Irving Layton, The Long Pea-Shooter. Montreal: Laocoon Press.
Jay Macpherson, O Earth Return
P. K. Page, The Metal and the Flower, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, Canada
Raymond Souster, A Dream That Is Dying. Toronto: Contact Press
Raymond Souster, Walking Death. Toronto: Contact Press.
F. R. Scott, Events and Signals. Toronto: Ryerson Press.
A. J. M. Smith, A Sort of Ecstasy; Michigan State College Press / Ryerson Press.
Sri Aurobindo:
Collected Poems (Poetry in English), Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram
Savitri ( Poetry in English ), Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram
R. de L. Furtado, The Centre, Hamilton, Ontario: Cromlech Press; Indian author published in Canada
Nizamat Jung, Poems (Poetry in English), edited and published by Zahir Ahmed in Hyderabad
Prithwi Singh Nahar, The Wind of Silence (Poetry in English), songs, sonnets and other poems; Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram
C. Raju, This Modern Age, foreword by Amarnath Jha
K. S. R. Sastry, A Vision of India, Madras: Raja Power Press
W. H. Auden, The Shield of Achilles, English poet living in the United States at this time
Sir John Betjeman, A Few Late Chrysanthemums
George Mackay Brown, The Storm, Scotland
Thom Gunn, Fighting Terms, Fantasy Press
John Heath-Stubbs, A Charm Against the Toothace
Philip Larkin, The Less Deceived
David Raikes (posthumous), The Poems of David Raikes
Criticism, scholarship and biography in the United Kingdom
P. Cruttwell, The Shakespearean Moment, criticism, United Kingdom
G. Hartmann, The Unmediated Vision, criticism, United Kingdom
W. K. Wimsatt Jr., The Verbal Icon, criticism, United Kingdom
Jon Silkin, The Peaceable Kingdom, including "Death of a Son (who died in a mental hospital aged one)"
Dylan Thomas, Quite Early One Morning, New Directions Publishers
Léonie Adams, Poems
W. H. Auden, The Shield of Achilles, English poet living in the United States at this time
Louise Bogan, Collected Poems, 1923–1953
E. E. Cummings, Poems, 1923–1954
Babette Deutsch, Animal, Vegetable, Mineral
Anthony Hecht, A Summoning of Stones
Daniel G. Hoffman, An Armada of Thirty Wales
Robinson Jeffers, Hungerfield and Other Poems
Weldon Kees, Poems 1947–1954
Archibald MacLeish, Songs for Eve
W. S. Merwin, The Dancing Bears, New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press (reprinted as part of The First Four Books of Poems, 1975)
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mine the Harvest
Marianne Moore, The Fables of La Fontaine
Howard Moss, The Toy Fair
Kenneth Patchen, The Famous Boating Party
May Swenson, Another Animal
Wallace Stevens, The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, includes "The Rock," previously unpublished section including "The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain," "A Quiet Normal Life," "Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour," "The Rock," "The Planet on the Table," and "Not Ideas about the Thing but the Thing Itself"), Knopf
E. B. White, The Second Tree from the Corner
William Carlos Williams, The Desert Music and Other Poems
Criticism, scholarship and biography in the United States
Hugh Kenner, Wyndham Lewis: A Critical Guidebook, criticism, United States
W. C. Williams, Selected Essays, criticism, United States
Martin Carter, Poems of Resistance, Guyana
Wilson Harris, Eternity to Season, Guyana
Frank Prince, Soldiers Bathing and Other Poems, South African
Keith Sinclair, Strangers or Beasts: Poems, New Zealand
Jean-Guy Pilon, Les cloîtres de l'été, Montréal: l'Hexagone
Louis Aragon, Les Yeux et la memoire
Jean Cocteau, Clair–obscur
René Daumal, Poésie noire, poésie blanche, posthumously published (died 1944)
Jean Follain, Appareil de la terre
Jean Grosjean, Fils de l'homme
Henri Michaux, Face au verrous
In each section, listed in alphabetical order by first name:
Girija Kumar Mathur, Dhup ke dhan
Namvar Singh, Chayavad, literary criticism that offers a radically new interpretation of the romantic movement in Hindi poetry; shows the social foundations of Hindi romanticism and its ties to the progressive movement that followed it
Premchand, Sahitya Ka Uddesya, literary essays; published posthumously
P. K. Paramesvaran Nair, Adhunika Sahitya Caritram, history of Malayalam literature (later translated into English and published by Sahitya Akademi in 1967 under the title History of Malayalam Literature)
P. Kunjiraman Nair, Kaliyacchan, poems reflecting traditional ways of life in Kerala
Sreedhara Menon, Kunnimenikal
Sukumar Azhikode, Asante Sitakavyam, critical assessment of Kumaran Asan's Cintavishtayaya
Gian Chand Jain, Urdu ki nasri dastanen, literary criticism on classical Urdu fiction ("dastan"), written in that language
Jigar Brelvi, Payam-i Savitri, a narrative poem on Savitri, a figure from Hindu mythology; Urdu
Masood Husain Khan, Urdu zaban aur adab, critical study on the Urdu language and literature
Baldev Gajra, also known as "Gumnam", Gumnam Sada, nationalist poems; Sindhi
Buddhadeb Basu, Sahitya Carca, essays on various literary topics; Bengali
Jayant Pathak, Marmar, the author's first poetry collection; Gujarati
M. Gopalakrishna Adiga, Cendemaddale, Kannada
Mohan Singh, Awazan, lyrics with a "romantic progressive ideology", according to Indian academic Sisir Kumar Das; Punjabi
Nand Lal Ambardar, Loel Ta Husun, including "Roopavat", Kashmiri
Nirendranath Chakraborty (also transliterated into English as Nirendranath Chakravarti, ), Nilnirjan (also transliterated into English as Nirendranath Chakravarti), mostly love poems, although one or two have political elements, Kolkata: Signet Press; Bengali-language
Raghunath Singh Samyal, Dogra Desa Te Dogari Boli, Dogri poetry praising Dograland, Dogra people and the Dogri language
Tulasibahadur Chetri, nicknamed "Apatan", Samkalpa ("Resolve"), Nepali
Madhunapantula Satyanarayanashastri, also spelled "Madhunapantula Satyanarayana Sastri", Andhra Puranamu, Telugu, (surname: Madhunapantula)
Manoj Das, Padadvani, Oriya
Satramdas, also known as "Sail", Rama Katha, 32 cantos in a Persian meter, written in the wake of the partition of India in 1947; Sindhi
Visvanatha Satyanarayana, Nannayagari prasanna Katha Kalitartha Yukti, critical appraisal of Nannaya; Telugu
Simin Behbahani, Ja-ye Pa ("Footprint"), Persia
José Santos Chocano, Obras completas, pról. de Luis Alberto Sánchez Madrid, Aguilar, Peruvian poetry published in Spain
Haim Gouri, Shirei Hotam ("Poems of the Seal"), Israeli writing in Hebrew
Sorley MacLean, Hallaig, Scottish Gaelic (in Gairm 8)
Pier Paolo Pasolini, La meglio gioventù, Italy (dialect)
Maria Luisa Spaziani, Le acque del sabato, Italy
Wisława Szymborska, Pytania zadawane sobie ("Questioning Yourself"), Poland
Tin Ujević, Žedan kamen na studencu ("Thirsty stone at the wellspring"), Croatian
Awards and honors
National Book Award for Poetry: Conrad Aiken, Collected Poems
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Theodore Roethke: The Waking
King's Gold Medal for Poetry: Ralph Hodgson
Bollingen Prize: W. H. Auden
Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets: Louise Townsend Nicholl and Oliver St. John Gogarty
Canada: Governor General's Award, poetry or drama: The Metal and the Flower, P. K. Page
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
February 9 – Ian Duhig, English poet
February 13 – Vijay Seshadri, Indian poet, essayist and literary critic who emigrates to the United States c. 1959
February 21 – Francisco X. Alarcón (died 2016), Mexican-American poet
February 27 – Thylias Moss, African-American poet, writer and playwright
March 4 – Irina Ratushinskaya, Russian samizdat poet
March 26 – Dorothy Porter (died 2008), Australian
April 17 – Erin Mouré, Canadian
May 5 – Hamid Ismailov, Uzbek writer
May 25 – Alexei Parshchikov (died 2009), Russian poet, critic and translator who emigrates to the United States in 1991
July 5 – Kevin Hart, Australian
July 19 – Jane Eaton Hamilton, Canadian short story writer, poet and photographer
July 31 – Kim Addonizio, American poet and novelist
August 6 – Lorna Dee Cervantes, American poet
August 8 – Yu Jian, China
August 15 – Mary Jo Salter, American
October 15 – Peter Bakowski, Australian
November 10 – Joy Goswami, Indian Bengali poet (a man)
December 5 – Lynda Hull, American
December 20 – Sandra Cisneros, American poet and author
December 27 – David Baker, American
Also:
Catherine Anderson (poet), American
Robert Boates, Canadian
Janet Charman, New Zealand
Imtiaz Dharker, Pakistan-born British
Cornelius Eady, African American
David Hallett, Australian
Sotiris Kakisis, Greek
Jan Heller Levi, American
Ibrahim Nasrallah, Jordanian-Palestinian poet and novelist
Luis J. Rodriguez, American poet, novelist, journalist, critic and columnist
Stephen Sartarelli, poet and translator
Deb Westbury, Australian
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
January 1 – Leonard Bacon, 66 (born 1887), American poet
February 6 – Maxwell Bodenheim, 62 (born 1892), American poet and novelist known as the "King of Greenwich Village Bohemians", murdered
March 28 – Francis Brett Young, 73 (born 1884), English novelist and poet
August 3 – Fumiko Nakajo 中城ふみ子, pen name of Noe Fumiko 野江富美子, 32 (born 1922), Japanese tanka poet who dies young after a turbulent life and struggle with breast cancer, as recorded in her poetry (surname: Nakajo)
August 18 – Samukawa Sokotsu 寒川鼠骨 (born 1875), Japanese, Meiji period haiku poet; Masaoka Shiki's pupil.
October 22
Jibanananda Das (born 1899), Bengali poet
Oswald de Andrade (born 1890), Brazilian poet and polemicist
