June 4 — Joseph Brodsky is expelled from the Soviet Union.
May 22 — Cecil Day-Lewis, Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, dies at Lemmons, the home of writers Kingsley Amis and Elizabeth Jane Howard on the northern edge of London.
Autumn — The first threnody attributed to E. J. Thribb (actually written by Barry Fantoni and colleagues) is published in the English satirical magazine Private Eye.
October 10 — Sir John Betjeman is appointed Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom.
November — The American Poetry Review founded by Stephen Berg in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
W. H. Auden, now a U.S. citizen, declares his New York neighborhood is too dangerous and returns to Oxford from the United States for the winter.
The Belfast Group, a discussion group of poets in Northern Ireland, goes out of existence this year. The group was started by Philip Hobsbaum when he moved to Belfast in 1963 and which included Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, James Simmons, Paul Muldoon, Ciaran Carson, Stewart Parker, Bernard MacLaverty and the critics Edna Longley and Michael Allen. Heaney moves from Belfast to work in Dublin and live in County Wicklow.
James K. Baxter, one of New Zealand's best-known poets, writes two original poems on the wallpaper of a room in the home of painter Michael Illingworth and his wife Dene. Soon after, Baxter dies. In 1973, after Baxter's death, the Illingworths remove the sections of wallpaper containing the poems and send them to the Hocken Library to be stored with Baxter's other papers.
Listed by nation where the work was first published and again by the poet's native land, if different; substantially revised works listed separately:
A.D. Hope, Collected Poems
Les Murray, Poems Against Economics
Earle Birney, Judith Copithorne, Andrew Suknaski, bill bissett, Four Parts Sand a selection of works by these concrete poets
Leonard Cohen, The Energy of Slaves
David Helwig, The Best Name of Silence
George Johnston, Happy Enough: Poems 1935–1972.
Dennis Lee, Civil Elegies and Other Poems. Toronto: Anansi.
Kenneth Leslie, O'Malley to the Reds And Other Poems. Halifax: By the Author.
Dorothy Livesay, Collected Poems: The Two Seasons. Toronto: Mcgraw-Hill Ryerson.
Gwendolyn MacEwen:
* The Shadow-Maker. Toronto: Macmillan.
The Armies of the Moon. Toronto: Macmillan, 1972. ISBN 978-0-7705-0868-5
Don McKay, Moccasins on Concrete: Poems (Canada)
James Reaney, Poems.
Charles Sangster, The St Lawrence and the Saguenay and other poems; Hesperus and other poems and lyrics, intro. Gordon Johnston (Toronto: University of Toronto Press and Buffalo, N.Y.)
Raymond Souster, Selected Poems of Raymond Souster. Michael Maklem ed. Ottawa: Oberon Press.
Wilfred Watson, The Sorrowful Canadians
Meena Alexander, Without Place, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India .
Ruskin Bond, It isn't Time That's Passing: Poems, 1970–71, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India .
Margaret Chatterjee, The Sandalwood Tree, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India
Dilip Chitre, Ambulance Ride,
Gauri Deshpande, Beyond the Slaughter House, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India
Shree Devi, Shades of Green, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India
Mary Vasanti Erulkar, Mandala 2/5, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India
Samir Das Gupta, Paling Shadows, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India
Nandita Haksar, Ego and Other Poems, Delhi: Orient Longman
Gopal R. Honnalgere, A Gesture of Fleshless Sound, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India .
Dilip Kumar Roy, Hark! His Flute!, Poona: Hari Krishna Mandir
Syed Ameerudin:
Poems of Protest, Sumter, South Carolina, United States: Poetry Eastwest; Indian poet, writing in English published in the United States
What the Himalayas said and Other Poems, Madras: Kalaivendhan Publishers
Pritish Nandy, editor, Indian Poetry in English, anthology
Saleem Peerandina (ed.), Contemporary Indian Poetry in English: An Assessment and Selection, Madras: Macmillan India Ltd.
Ireland
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Acts and Monuments, Dublin: The Gallery Press
Seamus Heaney, Wintering Out, Faber & Faber, Northern Ireland poet published in the United Kingdom
Pearse Hutchinson, Watching the Morning Grow, including "Sometimes Feel", Gallery Press
Thomas Kinsella, Notes from the Land of the Dead Irish poet published in the United Kingdom
Derek Mahon, Lives. Oxford University Press, Northern Ireland poet published in the United Kingdom
John Montague, The Rough Field
W. R. Rodgers, Collected Poems, Northern Ireland poet, published in the United Kingdom; posthumous
New Zealand
James K. Baxter:
Autumn Testament, not posthumous
Stonegut Sugar Works, Junkies and the Fuzz, Ode to Auckland, and Other Poems, posthumous
Alistair Campbell, Kapiti : Selected Poems 1947-71. Christchurch: Pegasus Press
Allen Curnow, Trees, Effigies, Moving Objects
Bill Manhire, The Elaboration
Kendrick Smithyman, Earthquake Weather
J. R. Ackerley (died 1967), Micheldever and Other Poems
James Aitchison, Sounds Before Sleep
Anne Beresford, Footsteps
Martin Booth, The Crying Embers
Alan Brownjohn, Warrior's Career
Florence Bull, Saint David's Day
Kevin Crossley-Holland, The Rain-Giver
Douglas Dunn, The Happier Life
D. J. Enright, Daughters of Earth
Elaine Feinstien, At the Edge, Sceptre Press
James Fenton, Terminal Moraine
Seamus Heaney, Wintering Out, Faber & Faber, Northern Ireland native published in the United Kingdom
Michael Horovitz, The Wolverhampton Wanderer
Ted Hughes, Selected Poems 1957–1967 (see also Selected Poems 1982, New Selected Poems 1995)
Thomas Kinsella, Notes from the Land of the Dead Irish poet published in the United Kingdom
Liz Lochhead, Memo for Spring
George MacBeth, Collected Poems 1958-70
Derek Mahon, Lives. Oxford University Press, Northern Ireland native published in the United Kingdom
Adrian Mitchell, Ride the Nightmare
Edwin Morgan, Glasgow Sonnets
Norman Nicholson, A Local Habitation
Brian Patten, And Sometimes It Happens
Mervyn Peake, A Book of Nonsense
Peter Porter, Preaching to the Converted
Sally Purcell, The Holly Queen
Peter Redgrove, Dr Faust's Sea-Spiral Spirit, and Other Poems
R. S. Thomas, H'm, Welsh
Norman Nicholson, A Local Habitation
Kathleen Raine, the Lost Country
W. R. Rodgers, Collected Poems, Northern Ireland poet, published in the United Kingdom; posthumous
Vernon Scannell, Selected Poems
Peter Scupham, The Snowing Globe
Stevie Smith, Scorpion, and Other Poems, posthumous
Charles Tomlinson, Written on Water
Helen Gardner, The New Oxford Book of English Verse, replaced the 1939 revised selection by Quiller-Couch. 1972
John Heath-Stubbs, co-editor, Penguin Modern Poets 20
A.R. Ammons:
Briefings: Poems Small and Easy
Collected Poems: 1951–1971, winner of the National Book Award in 1973
John Ashbery, Three Poems
W. H. Auden, Epistle to a Godson
Ted Berrigan, Ron Padgett, and Tom Clark, Back In Boston Again
John Berryman, Delusions, Etc. (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux) posthumous
Elizabeth Bishop and Emanuel Brasil, editors, An Anthology of Twentieth Century Brazilian Poetry (Wesleyan University Press)
Harold Bloom, Yeats (criticism)
Joseph Brodsky: Poems, Ann Arbor, Michigan: Ardis, Russian–American
Gwendolyn Brooks, Aurora
Robert Creeley, A Day Book
Stephen Dobyns, Concurring Beasts
Hilda Doolittle (H.D.), Hermetic Definition
Ed Dorn:
The Hamadryas Baboon at the Lincoln Park Zoo, Wine Press
Gunslinger, Book III: The Winterbook, Prologue to the Great Book IV Kornerstone, Frontier Press
Michael S. Harper, Song: "I want a Witness"
LeRoi Jones as Amiri Baraka, Spirit Reach
Philip Levine, They Feed They Lion
Archibald MacLeish, The Human Season: Selected Poems, 1926–1972, selected poems
James Merrill, Braving the Elements
Ned O'Gorman, The Flag the Hawk Flies
Mary Oliver, The River Styx, Ohio, and Other Poems
George Oppen, Collected Poems (only in Great Britain) and Seascape: Needle's Eye
Michael Palmer, Blake's Newton (Black Sparrow Press)
Kenneth Rexroth:
100 Poems from the French (translator)
Orchard Boat (translator)
Theodore Roethke, Straw for Fire, posthumous selections made by David Wagoner from the poet's notebooks
Louis Simpson, Adventures of the Letter I, including "American Dreams" and "Doubting"
Patti Smith, Seventh Heaven
James Tate, Absences
Eleanor Ross Taylor, Welcome Eumenides
Rosmarie Waldrop, The Aggressive Ways of the Casual Stranger (Random House)
J. Rodolfo Wilcock (Argentine), La sinagoga degli iconoclasti, translated as The Temple of Iconoclasts
Wayne Brown, On the Coast, Caribbean
Zulfikar Ghose, The Violent West, Pakistani poet lecturing in Texas
Anthony McNeill, Reel from "The Life Movie", Jamaica
James Matthews and Gladys Thomas, Cry Rage!, South Africa
Wole Soyinka, A Shuttle in the Crypt, Nigeria
Listed by nation where the work was first published and again by the poet's native land, if different; substantially revised works listed separately:
Paul Chamberland, Éclats de la pierre noire d'oû rejaillit ma vie
Gilles Hénault, complete works
Gustave Lamarche, complete works
Rina Lasnier, complete works
Fernand Ouellette, complete works
Suzanne Paradis, Il y eut un matin
Jean-Guy Pilon, Silences pour une souveraine, Ottawa: Éditions de l'Université d'Ottawa
Félix A. Savard, Le Bouscueil
Gemma Tremblay, Souffles du midi
Pierre Trottier, Sainte-Mémoire
Marc Alyn, Infini au delà
Philippe Chabaneix, Musiques d'avant la nuit
Andrée Chedid, Visage premier
Maurice Courant, Soleil de ma mémoire
Micheline Dupray, L'Herbe est trop douce
Gérard Genette, Figures III, one of three volumes of a work of critical scholarship in poetics – general theory of literary form and analysis of individual works — the Figures volumes are concerned with the problems of poetic discourse and narrative in Stendhal, Flaubert and Proust and in Baroque poetry (see also Figures I 1966, Figures II 1969)
Eugène Guillevic, Encoches
Edmond Jabès, Aély
Pierre Loubière, Mémoire buisonnière
Pierre Moussaric, Chansons du temps présent
Marie Noël, Chants des quatre temps (posthumous)
Hélène Parmelin, De Songe et de silence
Saint-John Perse, Œuvres Complètes, Paris: Gallimard
Denis Roche, Le Mécrit
Claude Royet-Journoud, Le Renversement
Claire de Soujeole, Pas dans la rosée
Heinrich Böll, Gedichte, nine poems
Andreas Okopenko, Orte wechselnden Unbehagens
Reiner Kunze, Zimmerlautstärke
Peter Huchel, Neue Gedichte
Günter Kunert, Offenere Ausgang
Beat Brechbühl, Der gechlagene Hund pisst an die Saüle des Tempels
Heiner Bastian, Tod im Leben, a long poem
Abraham Shlonsky, Ketavim
David Fogel, Kol ha-Shirim, collected by Dan Pagis, edited by Y. Cohen
E. Zussman, Atzai Tamid
T. Ribner, Ain Lehashiv
Yair Hurvitz, Narkisim le-Malhut Madmena
Abba Kovner, Lahakat ha-Katzav
Listed in alphabetical order by first name:
Chandranath Mishra, Unata pal, humorous and satirical poems by "a major poet of Maithili", according to Indian academic Sisir Kumar Das (a revised and expanded edition of Yugacakra 1952)
Harumal Isardas Sadarangani, Piraha Ji Bakha, Sindhi-language
Hiren Bhattacharya, Mor Des Mor Premar Kavita ("Poems of My Country and of My Love"), Assamese language
Namdeo Dhasal, Golpitha; Marathi-language
Niranjan Bhagat, Kavina Ketlak Prashno (Indian, writing in Gujarati), criticism
Vasant Abaji Dahake, Yogabhrashta (translated into English by Ranjit Hoskote and Mangesh Kulkarni as A Terrorist of the Spirit;New Delhi: Harper Collins/Indus, 1992); Marathi-language
Yumlembam Ibomcha Singh, Shingnaba Vol. I & II, Imphal; Meitei language
Riccardo Bacchelli, La stella del mattino
Marino Moretti, Tre anni e un giorno
Aldo Palazzeschi, Via dalle cento stelle
Tommaso Landolfi, Viola di morte, winner of the Fiuggi Prize
Edoardo Sanguineti, Wirrwarr
Giorgio Manganelli, Agli Dei ulteriori
Ferdinando Camon, La vita eterna
Hans Børli, Kyndelsmesse
Per Arneberg, Oktobernetter
Ernst Orvil, Nok sagt
Konstantin Simonov, Vietnam. Summer 1970
Aleksandr Bezymenski, The Law of the Heart, collected poems
David Kugultinov, Kalmyk poet, Revolt of the Intellect
Matilde Camus, Manantial de amor (Love Spring)
Pedro Salinas, Poesía, selected by Julio Cortázar
Ángel González, Palabra sobre palabra
Saul Yukievich, Fundadores de la nueva poesía latinoamericana, a collection of studies published in Spain by an Argentinian
Darie Novaceanu and J.M. Caballero Bonald, translators and editors, Poesía rumana contemporánea, a bilingual edition of Romanian poems translated into Spanish.
Hugo Achugar, Con bigote triste
Rosario Castellanos, Poesía no eres tú: Obra poética, 1948–1971
Rafael Méndez Dorich, editor, Profundo Centro, an anthology (Lima), Peru
Aída Vitale, Oidor andante
Idea Vilariño, Poemas de amor
Asya, Quiver of Boughs
Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, Footpaths Between Walls
Zyameh Telesin, Cries of Memory
Rachel Baumwoll, Longed For
Israel's President Shazer:
During a Mission
For Myself
Rivkah Bassman, Bright Stones
Malkah Chefetz-Tuzman, Leaves Do Not Fall
Rachel H. Korn, On the Edge of a Moment
Joshuah Rivin, Rainbow of Song
Saul Maltz, With Joy and Song (for younger readers)
Jørgen Gustava Brandt, Upraktiske digte. Udvalg, selected poems from 1953 to 1971, Denmark
Odysseus Elytis, The Light Tree And The Fourteenth Beauty (Το φωτόδεντρο και η δέκατη τέταρτη ομορφιά) and The Monogram (Το Μονόγραμμα) Greece
Nizar Qabbani, Poems Against The Law, Syrian poet writing in Arabic
Karl Ristikivi, Inimese teekond ("The journey of a man"), Estonian poet published in Sweden
Wisława Szymborska: Wszelki wypadek ("Could Have"), Poland
Johannes Wulff, Udvalgte digte. Vi som er hinanden, collected poems from 1928 to 1970, Denmark
Awards and honors
Nobel Prize in Literature: Heinrich Böll, West Germany
See 1979 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
Cholmondeley Award: Molly Holden, Tom Raworth, Patricia Whittaker
Eric Gregory Award: Tony Curtis, Richard Berengarten, Brian Oxley, Andrew Greig, Robin Lee, Paul Muldoon
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: James Wright, Collected Poems
National Book Award for Poetry: Frank O'Hara, The Collected Works of Frank O'Hara
Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets: W. D. Snodgrass
March 1 – Rie Yasumi やすみ りえ pen name of Reiko Yasumi 休 理英子, Japanese Senryū poet (a woman)
August 18 – Adda Djørup, Danish poet and fiction writer (a woman)
Shimon Adaf, Israeli poet and author
Alissa Quart, American nonfiction writer, critic, journalist, editor and poet
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
January 1 – Eberhard Wolfgang Möller, 65 (born 1906), German playwright and poet
January 7 – John Berryman, 57 (born 1914), American poet, from suicide (jumping off a bridge into the Mississippi River)
January 8 – Kenneth Patchen, 60 (born 1911), American poet and painter, of a heart attack
January 11 – Padraic Colum, 90, Irish–American poet
February 5 – Marianne Moore, 84 (born 1887), American Modernist poet and writer
March 4 – Richard Church (poet), 78, English poet, critic and novelist
May 22 – Cecil Day-Lewis, 68 English poet
August 2 – Paul Goodman (born 1911), American poet, of a heart attack
August 21 – A.M. Klein, 61, Ukrainian-Canadian poet and writer
October 3 – Gladys Schmitt, 63 (born 1909), American poet
October 22 – James K. Baxter, 46, New Zealand poet
November 1 – Ezra Pound, 87 (born 1885), American poet, critic and the driving force behind several Modernist movements, notably Imagism and Vorticism, from an intestinal blockage
November 20 – Robert Fletcher (poet), 87, American "cowboy poet" of "Don't Fence Me In"
December 10
Eileen Duggan, 78, New Zealand poet and journalist
Mark Van Doren, 78, American poet, academic and critic
December 20 – Günter Eich (born 1907) German poet, dramatist, and author
