Winter — This magazine founded in the United States by Robert Grenier and Barrett Watten
March — Cuban poet Herberto Padilla is arrested in Havana and released only after signing a confession stating he is a "vicious character" who took part in counterrevolutionary activities. A letter to Fidel Castro published May 20 in Paris from 60 leftist intellectuals, all supporters of the Cuban revolution, protests Padilla's treatment and accuses Castro of imposing Stalinism on Cuba. Among the 60: Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Susan Sontag, Alberto Moravia, Carlos Fuentes, and Mario Vargas Llosa (who saya he continues to support the Cuban revolution). Julio Cortázar of Argentina says he stands by Castro in a verse manifesto, Policrítica en la hora de los chacales
April 8 — Release of Right On!, a film directed by Herbert Danska, of poetry recitations with bongo accompaniments on New York city streets
April 21 — The 13th century Codex Regius is returned from Denmark to Iceland under naval escort.
July 2 — Release of The Canterbury Tales, a film directed by Pier Paulo Pasolini, providing a soft-pornographic, controversial version of four tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Counter/measures magazine is founded in the United States by X. J. Kennedy and his wife, Dorothy. The magazine champions poetry written in traditional patterns and is an influence in the later creation of the New Formalism movement.
Works published in English
Listed by nation where the work was first published and again by the poet's native land, if different; substantially revised works listed separately:
Canada
Margaret Atwood, Power Politics
bill bissett, Nobody Owns the Earth
George Bowering, Touch: Selected Poems 1960-1970
Louis Dudek, Collected Poetry. Montréal: Delta Canada.
Northrop Frye, The Bush Garden (scholarship)
John Glassco, Selected Poems. Toronto: Oxford University Press.
Bill Howell, The Red Fox
Irving Layton, The Collected Poems of Irving Layton. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.
Irving Layton, Nailpolish. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.
Kenneth Leslie, The Poems of Kenneth Leslie [Ed. Sean Haldane.] Ladysmith, Quebec: Ladysmith Press.
Richard Lewis, editor, I Breathe a New Song anthology of poems by Eskimos
Udaya Narayana Singh, Amrtasya Putraah, Calcutta: Lok Sahitya Parishad, Maithili-language
Vinod Kumar Shukla, Lagbhag Jai Hind, Sindhi: Ashok Vajpeyi; Hindi-language
Italy
Attilio Bertolucci, Viaggio d'inverno ("Winter Voyage"), marking a change of style in the author's poetry
Libero De Libero, Di brace in brace
Eugenio Montale:
Satura (1962–1970) (published in January); Italy
Diario del '71 e del '72 (poetry) a private edition of 100 copies; a second, nonprivate edition was published in 1973; Italy
Norway
Hans Borli, Isfuglen
Alfred Hauge, Det evige sekund
Peter R. Holm, Synslinjer
Ernst Orvil, Dikt i utvalg
Sigmund Skard, Popel ved flypass
Brazil
Joaquim Cardozo, De uma noite de festa
Murilo Mendes, Convergência
Henriqueta Lisboa, Nova lírica
Manuel Bandeira, Meus pemas perferidos, a selection from previous books
Foed Castro Chamma, O andarilho e a aurora
Anderson Braga Horta, Altiplano
Latin America
Delmira Agustini, Poesías completas, prólogue and notes by Manuel Alvar, posthumously published (died 1914), Barcelona: Editorial Labor, Uruguayan poet published in Spain
Herberto Padilla, Por el momento, published before his arrest in Cuba (see Events above)
Roberto Fernández Retamar, A quien pueda interesar (Cuba)
Five authors, including Agustín del Rosario, Poesía joven de Panamá
M.L. Mendoza, Con él, conmigo, con nosotros tres
Spain
Delmira Agustini, Poesías completas, prólogue and notes by Manuel Alvar, posthumously published (died 1914), Barcelona: Editorial Labor, Uruguayan poet published in Spain
Vicente Aleixandre, Poesía superrealista
Justo Jorge Padrón, Los oscuros fuegos
José Angel Valente, Las palabras de la tribu, essays
José María Valverde, Enseñanzas de la edad, 1945-70
Odysseus Elytis, Ο ήλιος ο ηλιάτορας ("The Sovereign Sun"), Greece
Alan Llwyd, Y March Hud ("The Magic Horse"), Welsh
F. Pratz, Deutsche Gedichte von 1900 bis zur Gegenwart, anthology, German
Ndoc Gjetja, Rrezatim ("Radiation"), his first book of poetry; Albania
Seán Ó Ríordáin, Línte Liombó (Limbo Lines), Irish language in Ireland
Siegbert Prawer, editor, Seventeen Modern German Poets, anthology published by Oxford University Press in the United Kingdom, poems in German
Awards and honors
Nobel Prize in Literature: Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet and diplomat
Canada
See 1971 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
United Kingdom
Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize: Geoffrey Hill, Mercian Hymns
Cholmondeley Award: Charles Causley, Gavin Ewart, Hugo Williams
Eric Gregory Award: Martin Booth, Florence Bull, John Pook, D. M. Warman, John Welch
Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Stephen Spender
First Whitbread Award for Poetry: Geoffrey Hill, Mercian Hymns
United States
Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (later the post would be called "Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress"): Josephine Jacobsen appointed this year.
Bollingen Prize: Richard Wilbur and Mona Van Duyn
Frost Medal: Melville Cane
National Book Award for Poetry: Mona Van Duyn, To See, To Take
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: William S. Merwin, The Carrier of Ladders
Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets: James Wright
Elsewhere
Goodman Fielder Wattie Book Award for Poetry: Rosemary Rolleston, William & Mary Rolleston
Births
September 27 – Petrus Akkordeon, German poet
Sophie Hannah, English poet and novelist
Jan Wagner, German poet
Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
January 2 – E. V. Knox (born 1881), English poet and satirist
May 9 – Ogden Nash, 68, American poet best known for writing pithy and funny light verse
March 7 – Stevie Smith, 67, British poet and novelist, of a brain tumor
March 9 – Jean Follain, French poet
March 17 – Hiraide Shū 平出修 (born 1878), Japanese, late Meiji period novelist, poet, and lawyer; represented defendant in the High Treason Incident; a co-founder of the literary journal Subaru
June 5 – Clifford Dyment (born 1914), British poet, literary critic and editor, and journalist
June 6 – Edward Andrade (born 1887), English physicist and poet.
June 13 – Hinatsu Kōnosuke 日夏耿之介, a pen-name of Higuchi Kunito (born 1890), Japanese, poet, editor and academic known for romantic and gothic poetry patterned after English literature; fervent Roman Catholic, co-founder, with Horiguchi Daigaku and Saijo Yaso, of Shijin ("Poets") magazine
June 25 – Charles Vildrac, French poet and playwright
July 3 – Jim Morrison, 27, American singer, songwriter, poet; best known as the lead singer and lyricist of The Doors
July 13 – R. A. K. Mason (born 1905), New Zealand
September (exact date not known) — Paul Blackburn, 44, American poet and translator, from esophageal cancer
September 9 – Lenore G. Marshall, 72
September 20 or September 21 (sources differ) – Giorgos Seferis, Greek poet and winner of a Nobel Prize for Literature
October 10 – J. C. Beaglehole (born 1901), New Zealand historian and poet
November 14 – Kyōsuke Kindaichi 金田一 京助 (born 1882), Japanese linguist and poet, father of linguist Haruhiko Kindaichi
November 19 – Jacob Glatstein, 75, American Yiddish poet and critic
November 25 – Andrew Young (born 1885), Scottish-born poet and clergyman
December 14 – Munir Chowdhury also "Munier Chowdhury" (born 1925), Bengali educator, playwright, literary critic and political dissident
December 18 – Aleksandr Tvardovsky, 61, Russian poet, editor of the official Soviet literary journal Novy Mir who fought hard to maintain its independence
