1 May 1999 — Andrew Motion becomes Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom for 10 years
1 July 1999 — Scotland's Parliament opens with the singing of Robert Burns' "A Man's a Man For A'That", instead of "God Save The Queen"
4 October 1999 — In the United States, New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman signs into law Assembly Bill No. 2714 (P.L. 1999, c. 228) sent to her from the state legislature and creates the New Jersey William Carlos Williams Citation of Merit—effectively, Poet Laureate of New Jersey. Whitman subsequently selected poet Gerald Stern (b. 1925), then a resident of Lambertville, New Jersey as the first appointed to the post in the following April.
The Robert Fitzgerald Prosody Award is established at the Fifth Annual West Chester University Poetry Conference. The award is given to scholars who have made a lasting contribution to the art and science of versification. Derek Attridge is the first winner
Carl Rakosi's 99th birthday celebrated at the Kelly Writers House with a live audiocast
A new grave slab is installed at the Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh over the final resting place of William Topaz McGonagall (1825–1904), comically renowned as the worst poet in the English language; the slab is inscribed:
William McGonagall
Poet and Tragedian
"I am your gracious Majesty
ever faithful to Thee,
William McGonagall, the Poor Poet,
That lives in Dundee."
Listed by nation where the work was first published and again by the poet's native land, if different; substantially revised works listed separately:
Robert Adamson, Black Water: Approaching Zukofsky
Jennifer Maiden, Mines, Paper Bark, ISBN 90-5704-046-8
Les Murray:
Fredy Neptune, verse novel, winner of the 2005 Premio Mondello (in Italy)
New Selected Poems, Duffy & Snellgrove
Conscious and Verbal, Carcanet, Duffy & Snellgrove
Ken Babstock, Mean, his first book of poetry, winner of the Atlantic Poetry Prize and the Milton Acorn People's Poet Award (Canada)
Afua Cooper, editor, Utterances and Incantations: Women, Poetry and Dub, Toronto: Sister Vision Press (scholarship)
Jeffery Donaldson, Waterglass, McGill-Queen's University Press
George Elliott Clarke, Gold Indigoes. Durham: Carolina Wren, ISBN 0-932112-40-4
Susan Holbrook, misled
Tim Lilburn, To the River, winner of the Saskatchewan Book Award for Book of the Year
A. F. Moritz, Rest on the Flight into Egypt
Andy Quan and Jim Wong-Chu, editors, Swallowing Clouds: An Anthology of Chinese-Canadian Poetry, Vancouver, British Columbia: Arsenal Pulp Press
Rukmini Bhaya Nair, The Ayodhya Cantos ( Poetry in English ), New Delhi: Penguin
C. P. Surendran, Posthumous Poems ( Poetry in English ), New Delhi: Penguin (Viking); not posthumously published
Sudeep Sen:
Bodytext: Dramatic Monologues in Motion, London Borough of Harrow: Harrow Arts and Leisure Service
Retracing American Contours, Columbia: University of South Carolina
Eunice de Souza, editor, Talking Poems: Conversations with Poets, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-564782-3
E.V. Ramakrishnan, editor, The Tree of Tongues: An Anthology of Modern Indian Poetry, Arundhathi Subramaniam called the volume "a landmark book of translations of modern Indian poetry"; Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, ISBN 81-85952-70-1
Ireland
Ciaran Carson, The Ballad of HMS Belfast, Oldcastle: The Gallery Press, ISBN 978-1-85235-246-2
Vona Groarke, Other People's Houses, Oldcastle: The Gallery Press,
Joan McBreen, editor, The White Page an bhileog bh'an: Twentieth-Century Irish Women Poets Cliffs of Moher, County Clare: Salmon
Thomas McCarthy, Mr Dineen's Careful Parade: New and Selected Poems, Anvil Press, London, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom
Medbh McGuckian and Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, translators, The Water Horse: Poems in Irish Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Oldcastle: The Gallery Press
New Zealand
Alistair Campbell, Gallipoli & Other Poems, Wellington: Wai-te-ata Press
Janet Charman, Rapunzel Rapunzel, Auckland: Auckland University Press
Leigh Robert Davis, Te Tangi a te Matuhi, Auckland: Jack Books
Michele Leggott, As far as I can see, Auckland: Auckland University Press
Robin Hyde, The book of Nadath, introduction and notes by Michele Leggott; Auckland: Auckland University Press, posthumous
Bill Manhire, What to Call Your Child
Sarah Quigley, Raewyn Alexander and Anna Jackson, AUP New Poets 1: Sarah Quigley, Raewyn Alexander and Anna Jackson, Auckland: Auckland University Press
Mark Bryant, editor, Literary Hymns: An Anthology, London: Hodder & Stoughton
Gerry Cambridge, Nothing But Heather!, Luath Press ISBN 0-946487-49-9
Julia Donaldson. The Gruffalo, children's story in verse
Carol Ann Duffy:
Meeting Midnight, Faber and Faber (children's poetry)
The World's Wife, Anvil Press Poetry
Seamus Heaney:
The Light of the Leaves, Bonnefant Press
Translator: Beowulf, Faber & Faber
Translator: Diary of One Who Vanished, a song cycle by Leoš Janáček of poems by Ozef Kalda, Faber & Faber
John Heath-Stubbs, The Sound of Light
Ted Hughes, translator:
Aeschylus: The Oresteia
Alcestis
Kathleen Jamie, Jizzen
Andrew Johnston (poet), The Open Window, Arc Publications, a New Zealand poet living in Paris, France
Derek Mahon, Collected Poems, Gallery Press
Don Paterson, The Eyes
Tom Paulin, The Wind Dog
Peter Reading, Apophthegmatic
Peter Redgrove, Selected Poems
Mary Jo Salter, A Kiss in Space, Knopf
Marina Tsvetayeva, The Selected Poems of Marina Tsvetayeva, translated by Elaine Feinstein, fifth edition, with new poems and a new introduction, Oxford University Press/Carcanet
Hugo Williams, Billy's Rain, Faber and Faber
Richard Caddel and Peter Quartermain, editors, Other: British and Irish Poetry since 1970, an anthology of poetry outside The Movement (essentially the mainstream) of English and Irish poetry (Wesleyan University Press)
Carol Ann Duffy, editor, Time's Tidings: Greeting the 21st Century, Anvil Press Poetry
Elaine Feinstein, editor, After Pushkin, "versions by contemporary poets", published by the Folio Society and Carcanet
Iona Opie, editor, Here Comes Mother Goose, a collection of nursery rhymes
Michael Schmidt, The Harvill Book of Twentieth-Century Poetry in English
Adam Schwartzman, editor, Ten South African poets, Manchester: Carcanet
John Ashbery, Girls on the Run, a book-length poem inspired by the work of artist Henry Darger
Joseph Brodsky: Discovery, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux Russian-American
Jared Carter, Les Barricades Mysterieuses, Cleveland State University Poetry Center.
Robert Dassanowsky, Telegrams from the Metropole. Selected Poems 1980-1998 ISBN 978-3-901993-02-2
Rita Dove, On the Bus with Rosa Parks (Norton); a New York Times "notable book of the year"
Beth Gylys, Bodies that Hum (Silverfish Review Press); winner of the Gerald Cable Book Award
Geoffrey Hill, The Triumph of Love (Houghton Mifflin); a New York Times "notable book of the year"
John Hollander, Figurehead and Other Poems
Fanny Howe, Forged
William Logan, Night Battle
Glyn Maxwell, The Breakage, (Houghton Mifflin); a New York Times "notable book of the year"
W. S. Merwin, The River Sound: Poems, New York: Knopf; a New York Times "notable book of the year"
Eugenio Montale, Collected Poems: 1920-1954 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux); a New York Times "notable book of the year"; translated from Italian
Mary Oliver, Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems
Michael Palmer, The Danish Notebook (Avec Books); memoir/poetic essay. ISBN 9781880713181
George Quasha (with Chie Hasegawa), Ainu Dreams (Station Hill Press)
Carl Rakosi, The Old Poet's Tale
Kenneth Rexroth, Swords That Shall Not Strike: Poems of Protest and Rebellion (Glad Day; posthumous)
Charles Simic, Jackstraws: Poems (Harcourt Brace); a New York Times "notable book of the year"
A. E. Stallings, Archaic Smile
Mark Strand, Chicken, Shadow, Moon & More, by a Canadian native long living in and published in the United States
Eleanor Ross Taylor, Late Leisure
Melvin B. Tolson, Harlem Gallery: And Other Poems (University Press of Virginia); a New York Times "notable book of the year"
Rosmarie Waldrop, Reluctant Gravities (New Directions)
Jesse Lee Kercheval, World as Dictionary
Criticism, scholarship and biography in the United States
M. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms (first published in 1958), goes into its seventh edition, Fort Worth, Texas: Harcourt Brace
Charles Bernstein, A Poetics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press)
Molly Peacock, How to Read a Poem ... and Start a Poetry Circle, New York: Riverhead Books
Riohard Caddel and Peter Quartermain, editors, Other: British and Irish Poetry since 1970 Wesleyan University Press
Ed Dorn and Gordon Brotherston, editors (and Brotherston, translator), Sun Unwound: Original Texts from Occupied America, North Atlantic Books anthology
Tanure Ojaide and Tijan M. Sallah, editors, The New African Poetry: An Anthology, Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Reinner Publishers
A. L. Soens, editor, I, the Song : Classical Poetry of Native North America, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press
Poets in The Best American Poetry 1999
Poems from these 75 poets are in The Best American Poetry 1999, edited by David Lehman, guest editor, Robert Bly:
Listed by nation where the work was first published and again by the poet's native land, if different; substantially revised works listed separately:
Yves Bonnefoy, La Pluie d'été, France
Claude Esteban, Janvier, février, mars. Pages, Farrago; France
Madeleine Gagnon, Rêve de pierre, Montréal, VLB; Canada
Michel Houellebecq, Renaissance, poèmes, Flammarion; France
György Petri, Amíg lehet
In each section, listed in alphabetical order by first name:
Joy Goswami Suryo-Pora Chhai, Kolkata: Ananda Publishers, ISBN 81-7215-773-8
Mallika Sengupta, Kathamanabi, Kolkata: Ananda Publishers
Nirendranath Chakravarti, Onno Gopal, Kolkata: Ananda Publishers
Udaya Narayana Singh, Anukriti, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi
NOBBOIER KOBITA, An anthology of poetry 1990s Bangladesh, edited by Mahbub Kabir, Loak Prokashana, Shahbag, Dhaka.
K. Satchidanandan, Theranjedutha Kavithakal, selected poems; Malayalam-language
P. P. Ramachandran, Kanekkane, winner of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for poetry: Kottayam: DC Books
Veerankutty, Jalabhoopadam ("Mapping the Waters"), Kozhikode: Papillon
Dilip Chitre, Ekoon Kavita – 3, Mumbai: Popular Prakashan
Malika Amar Sheikh:
Deharutu, Mumbai: Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Prabodhini
Mahanagar, Mumbai: Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Prabodhini
Basudev Sunani, Mahula Bana, Nuapada: Eeshan-Ankit Prakashani
Bharat Majhi, Agadhu Duari, Varsapallavi, Kendrapara
Rajendra Kishore Panda, Ishakhela, Cuttack: Cuttack Students' Store
Ajmer Rode, Leela, considered by critics "a landmark volume in modern Punjabi poetry", according to Arundhathi Subramaniam; London, Vancouver: The Rainbird Press, ISBN 0-9690504-9-6
Amarjit Chandan, Guthli, Kitab Tirinjan, Lahore; Punjabi-language
Chandrakanta Murasingh; Kokborok-language:
Lok Chethuwang Lok, Krishnanagar: Akshar Publications
Pindi Watawi Pin, Agartala: Hachukni Khorang Publisher
Jiban Narah, Suwaranir San, Guwahati, Assam: Jyoti-Prakashan; Assamese-language
Mamta Sagar, Nadiya Neerina Teva, Bangalore: Ila Prakashana, Kannada-language
K. Siva Reddy, Telugu-language:
Varsham, Varsham, Hyderabad: Jhari Poetry Circle
Jaitrayatra, Hyderabad: Sivareddy Mithrulu
Thangjam Ibopishak Singh, Mayadesh ("The Land of Maya"), Imphal: Writer’s Forum; Meitei language poet and academic
Vaidehi, pen name of Janaki Srinivasa Murthy, Parijatha, Bangalore: Christ College Kannada Sangha, Kannada-language
Poland
Zbigniew Herbert, Podwójny oddech. Prawdziwa historia nieskończonej miłości. Wiersze dotąd niepublikowane, Gdynia: Małgorzata Marchlewska Wydawnictwo (posthumous)
Tymoteusz Karpowicz, Słoje zadrzewne ("Tree Rings"), the work stirred "a literary sensation" in Poland, according to critic Tomasz Tabako Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Dolnośląskie
Ewa Lipska, 1999, Kraków: Wydawnictwo literackie
Tadeusz Różewicz, Matka odchodzi ("Mother Departs"), Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Dolnośląskie
Tomasz Różycki, Anima, Zielona Sowa, Kraków
Jarosław Marek Rymkiewicz, Znak niejasny, baśń półżywa ("The Unclear sign, a Half-living Legend"), Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy
Piotr Sommer, Piosenka pasterska
Jan Twardowski, Miłość miłości szuka, t. 1-2, Warsaw: PIW, Księgarnia i Drukarnia Świętego Wojciecha
Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki, Kamień pełen pokarmu. Księga wierszy z lat 1987-1999
Adam Zagajewski, Pragnienie, Kraków: a5
Dejan Stojanović, Sunce sebe gleda (The Sun Watches Itself), Književna reč, Beograd, 1999
Matilde Camus:
Clamor del pensamiento ("Clamour of thought")
Cancionero multicolor ("Multicolour collection of verses")
La estrellita Giroldina ("Giroldina the star")
Christoph Buchwald, general editor, and Raoul Schrott, guest editor, Jahrbuch der Lyrik 1999/2000 ("Poetry Yearbook 1999/2000"), publisher: Beck; anthology
Lo Fu (poet), also spelled "Luo Fu", Silent Falls the Snow, Chinese (Taiwan)
Aharon Shabtai, Politiqa (Hebrew: "Politics")
Maria Luisa Spaziani, Italy:
Un fresco castagneto
La radice del mare
Marie Šťastná, Jarním pokrytcům ("To Spring Hypocrites"), Czech Republic
Yu Jian, Yi mei chuanguo tiankong de dingzi China
Awards and honors
Nobel prize: Günter Grass
C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Gig Ryan, Pure and Applied
Dinny O'Hearn Poetry Prize: The Impossible, and other Poems by R. A. Simpson
Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Lee Cataldi, Race Against Time
Miles Franklin Award: Murray Bail, Eucalyptus
Gerald Lampert Award
Archibald Lampman Award
Atlantic Poetry Prize
See 1999 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
Pat Lowther Award
Prix Alain-Grandbois
Shaunt Basmajian Chapbook Award
New Zealand
Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement:
Montana New Zealand Book Awards (no poetry winner this year) First-book award for poetry: Kate Camp, Unfamiliar Legends of the Stars, Victoria University Press
Cholmondeley Award: Vicki Feaver, Geoffrey Hill, Elma Mitchell, Sheenagh Pugh
Eric Gregory Award: Ross Cogan, Matthew Hollis, Helen Ivory, Andrew Pidoux, Owen Sheers, Dan Wyke
Forward Poetry Prize Best Collection: Jo Shapcott, My Life Asleep (Oxford University Press)
Forward Poetry Prize Best First Collection: Nick Drake, The Man in the White Suit (Bloodaxe)
Poet Laureate of Great Britain: Andrew Motion appointed
Samuel Johnson Prize: Antony Beevor, Stalingrad
T. S. Eliot Prize (United Kingdom and Ireland): Hugo Williams, Billy's Rain
Whitbread Best Book Award: Seamus Heaney, Beowulf
Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Daisy Fried, She Didn't Mean To Do It
Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: George Garrett
Arthur Rense Prize awarded to James McMichael by the American Academy of Arts and Letters
Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: J.D. McClatchy, "Tattoos"
Bollingen Prize: Robert Creeley
Frost Medal: Barbara Guest
National Book Award for poetry: Ai, Vice: New & Selected Poems
Special Bicentential Consultants in Poetry to the Library of Congress: Rita Dove, Louise Glück, and W.S. Merwin appointed
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Mark Strand, Blizzard of One
Robert Fitzgerald Prosody Award: Derek Attridge
Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize: Maxine Kumin
Wallace Stevens Award: Jackson Mac Low
Whiting Awards: Michael Haskell, Terrance Hayes, Martha Zweig
William Carlos Williams Award: B.H. Fairchild, The Art of the Lathe (Working Classics), Judge: Garrett Hongo
Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets: Gwendolyn Brooks
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
January 13 – John Frederick Nims, United States
February 22 – William Bronk, 81, United States
May 10 – Shel Silverstein, 68, children's poet
August 15 – Patricia Beer, 79, British poet and critic
September 8 – Moondog, 83, street poet (aka Louis T. Hardin)
October 9 – João Cabral de Melo Neto, 79, Brazilian poet and diplomat
December 10 – Edward Dorn, 70, American poet associated with the Black Mountain poets
date not known:
December – Ida Affleck Graves, 97
Felipe Alfau (born 1902), Spanish-American poet, translator and author
Sufia Kamal (born 1911), Bengali poet, writer, organizer, feminist and activist
