Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).
March 16 — Authorities in Saudi Arabia arrest and jail poet Abdul Mohsen Musalam and dismiss a newspaper editor following the publication of Musalam's poem The Corrupt on Earth that criticizes the state's Islamic judiciary. In it, the poet accuses some judges of being corrupt and issuing unfair rulings for their own personal benefit.
August 22 — Poet Ron Silliman starts his popular and controversial weblog, Silliman's Blog, which will become one of the most popular blogs devoted largely to contemporary poetry and poetics. (By August 2006, the blog will reach a total of 800,000 hits and get its next 100,000 by early November.).
August 27 in the United States; December 8 in Europe — Avril Lavigne's pop song Sk8er Boi is released; it is about the award-winning Irish performance poet Gerard McKeown, whom she has not met, but had seen performing in Belfast, Northern Ireland while on tour there. The single reached number ten on the United States Billboard Hot 100, number eight in the United Kingdom, number three in Australia, number thirteen in Canada and number one in Spain. Lavigne confirms the connection in a 2008 interview.
September - Amiri Baraka (b. 1934), an African-American poet and political activist from Newark, New Jersey who was appointed the second Poet Laureate of New Jersey, ignites a controversy and accusations of anti-Semitism with a public reading of "Somebody Blew Up America" at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival near Stanhope, New Jersey. Baraka's poem discussed the September 11th attacks that was highly critical of racism in America, included angry depictions of public figures such as Rudolph Giuliani, Trent Lott, Clarence Thomas, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and Ward Connerly, accused Israel of involvement in the World Trade Center attacks, and supported the theory that the United States government knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance. Amid public outrage and pressure from state leaders, Baraka was asked to resign as the Poet Laureate by New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey who appointed him to the post two months earlier. Baraka refused. Because there was no legal mechanism provided in the law to remove him as poet laureate, the state legislature and governor abolished the position to remove him from the post effective 2 July 2003.
Fulcrum, An annual of poetry and aesthetics is founded in the United States.
After Ghazi al-Gosaibi, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Britain, publishes a poem praising a suicide bomber who had killed himself and two Israelis after blowing himself up in a supermarket; the ambassador is recalled home.
The office of Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate is instituted (see "Awards and honors" section below).
The office of Edinburgh Makar is instituted in Scotland, with Stewart Conn as first incumbent.
Influential Chinese literary magazine Tamen ("They/Them") revived as a webzine at www.tamen.net.
Bowery Poetry Club, a New York City poetry performance space, founded by Bob Holman.
Listed by nation where the work was first published and again by the poet's native land, if different; substantially revised works listed separately:
Alison Croggon, Attempts at Being, Salt Publishing, ISBN 1-876857-42-0.
Robert Gray, Afterimages
Emma Lew, Anything the Landlord Touches, won the 2003 C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry and was short-listed for the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry that same year
Chris Mansell:
Stalking the Rainbow (PressPress, 2002)
Fickle Brat (IP Digital, Brisbane, 2002)
Les Murray:
Poems the Size of Photographs, Duffy & Snellgrove and Carcanet
New Collected Poems, Duffy & Snellgrove; Carcanet, 2003
Margaret Avison, Concrete and Wild Carrot
Christian Bök, ’Pataphysics: The Poetics of an Imaginary Science ISBN 978-0-8101-1877-5
Dionne Brand, thirsty
Michael Boughn, Dislocations in Crystal (Coach House Books) ISBN 978-1-55245-111-3
Louis Cabri, The Mood Embosser (Coach House Books) ISBN 978-1-55245-095-6
Margaret Christakos, Excessive Love Prostheses (Coach House Books) ISBN 978-1-55245-102-1
Lise Downe, Disturbances of Progress (Coach House Books) ISBN 978-1-55245-112-0
Rob Fitterman, Metropolis (Book 2) (Coach House Books) ISBN 978-1-55245-104-5
Laura Lush:
The First Day of Winter: Poetry, Vancouver: Ronsdale Press
Going to the Zoo, Winnipeg: Turnstone Press
Don McKay, Vis à Vis: Field Notes on Poetry & Wilderness
George McWhirter, The Book of Contradictions
Jay Millar, Mycological Studies (Coach House Books) ISBN 978-1-55245-103-8
P. K. Page, Planet Earth: Poems Selected and New, edited and with an introduction by Eric Ormsby, Erin, ON: Porcupine's Quill
Joe Rosenblatt, Parrot fever. collages by Michel Christensen. Toronto: Exile.
Raymond Souster, Take Me Out to the Ballgame. Ottawa: Oberon Press.
Meena Alexander, Illiterate Heart ( Poetry in English ), Evanston, Illinois: TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press, by an Indian writing living in and published in the United States
Smita Agarwal, Wish-granting Words,(Poetry in English) New Delhi: Ravi Dayal Publisher, 2002. ISBN 81-7530-046-9
Sujata Bhatt, A Colour for Solitude ( Poetry in English ), Carcanet Press
Keki Daruwalla, The Map-maker ( Poetry in English ), Ravi Dayal
Ranjit Hoskote, editor, Reasons for Belonging, Fourteen Contemporary Indian Poets ( Poetry in English ), New Delhi: Viking/Penguin Books India; anthology including work from: Jerry Pinto, Vijay Nambisan, C. P. Surendran, Smita Agarwal, Arundhati Subramaniam, Jeet Thayil, Tabish Khair, Ranjit Hoskote and Rukhmini Bhaya Nair, Vivek Narayanan, Gavin Barrett, Anjum Hasan and H. Masud Taj
Sudeep Sen, Monsoon, re-issued in 2005 as Rain ( Poetry in English ); London: Aark Arts, ISBN 1-899179-10-0
C. P. Surendran, Canaries on the Moon ( Poetry in English ), Kozhikode: Yeti, Chennai.
Mallika Sengupta, Carriers Of Fire, (translated from the original Bengali, Kolkata: Bhashanagar
Ireland
Vona Groarke, Flight, Oldcastle: The Gallery Press, Ireland
Justin Quinn:
Fuselage Oldcastle: The Gallery Press,
Gathered Beneath the Storm: Wallace Stevens, Nature and Community, University College of Dublin Press, 2002 (criticism)
New Zealand
James K. Baxter, The Tree House: James K. Baxter's Poems for Children (posthumous), the first illustrated edition of his work for children
Janet Charman, Snowing Down South, Auckland: Auckland University Press
Alan Brunton, Fq, a sequence of 144 poems (posthumous)
Cilla McQueen, Soundings, Otago University Press
Mike Minehan, O Jerusalem: James K. Baxter an Intimate Memoir
Kendrick Smithyman, posthumous:
Last Poems, Auckland: Holloway Press, designed by Tara hir poi a pek fhj nbb a: Auckland University Press
Poets in Best New Zealand Poems
Best New Zealand Poems series, an annual online anthology, is started this year with Iain Sharp as the first annual editor. Twenty-five poems by 25 New Zealand poets are selected from the previous year. The first selection is called Best New Zealand Poetry 2001. Unlike The Best American Poetry series, the year named in each edition refers to the year the poems were originally published, not the following year, when the collection is put together and made public. Sharp chose poems published in 2001 from these poets:
Neil Astley, editor, Staying Alive: real poems for unreal times (anthology)
Ciarán Carson: The Inferno of Dante Alighieri (translator), Granta, awarded the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize
Carol Ann Duffy, Feminine Gospels Picador
Elaine Feinstein, Collected Poems and Translations, Carcanet
James Fenton: An Introduction to English Poetry
Paul Henry, The Slipped Leash, Seren
Ted Hughes, Selected Poems, 1957–1994 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux); a New York Times "notable book of the year"
Glyn Maxwell, The Nerve (Houghton Mifflin); a New York Times "notable book of the year" (British poet living in America, poetry editor of The New Republic magazine)
Sean O'Brien:
Cousin Coat: Selected Poems 1976–2001 (Picador)
With John Kinsella and Peter Porter, Rivers (Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Australia)
Alice Oswald:
Dart, Faber and Faber, ISBN 0-571-21410-X
Co-editor, with Peter Oswald and Robert Woof), Earth Has Not Any Thing to Shew More Fair: A Bicentennial Celebration of Wordsworth's "Sonnet Composed upon Westminster Bridge" Shakespeare's Globe & The Wordsworth Trust, ISBN 1-870787-84-6
John Heath-Stubbs, The Return of the Cranes
Peter Redgrove, From the Virgil Caverns
R.S. Thomas, Residues (posthumous)
Hugo Williams, Collected Poems, Faber and Faber
Meena Alexander, Illiterate Heart, Evanston, Illinois: TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press, by an Indian writing living in and published in the United States
John Ashbery, Chinese Whispers
Frank Bidart, Music Like Dirt (Sarabande Books), the only poetry chapbook ever nominated for a Pulitzer Prize
Billy Collins, Nine Horses: Poems (Random House); a New York Times "notable book of the year" (ISBN 0-375-50381-1)
Robert Creeley, guest editor, The Best American Poetry 2002
Jim Dodge – Rain on the River
Alan Dugan, Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry (Seven Stories); a New York Times "notable book of the year"
Michael S. Harper, Selected Poems, ARC Publications
Paul Hoover, Winter Mirror, (Flood Editions)
Kenneth Koch:
Sun Out: Selected Poems, 1952–1954, New York: Knopf
A Possible World, New York: Knopf
Abba Kovner, Sloan-Kettering: Poems (Schocken); a New York Times "notable book of the year"
Brad Leithauser, Darlington's Fall: A Novel in Verse (Knopf); a 5,700-line verse novel in 10-line stanzas, irregularly rhymed; a New York Times "notable book of the year"
Glyn Maxwell, The Nerve (Houghton Mifflin); a New York Times "notable book of the year" (British poet living in America, poetry editor of The New Republic magazine)
J.D. McClatchy, Hazmat: Poems (Knopf); a New York Times "notable book of the year"
Czesław Miłosz, New and Collected Poems: 1931–2001 (Ecco/HarperCollins); a New York Times "notable book of the year"
Paul Muldoon, Moy Sand and Gravel, winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and Griffin Poetry Prize and shortlisted for the 2002 T. S. Eliot Prize
Lorine Niedecker, Lorine Niedecker: Collected Works, edited by Jenny Penberthy (University of California Press), posthumous
Mary Oliver, What Do We Know
Molly Peacock, Cornucopia: New & Selected Poems
Carl Phillips, Rock Harbor
Marie Ponsot, Springing: New and Selected Poems (Knopf); a New York Times "notable book of the year"
Claudia Rankine and Juliana Spahr, editors, American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Where Lyric Meets Language, Wesleyan University Press, ISBN 978-0-8195-6546-4, anthology including work by Lucie Brock-Broido, Harryette Mullen, Ann Lauterbach, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Brenda Hillman and Jorie Graham
Margaret Reynolds, editor, The Sappho Companion (scholarship) Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 978-0-312-29510-3 ISBN 0-312-29510-3
W. G. Sebald, After Nature (Random House); a book-length poem; a New York Times "notable book of the year"
Aharon Shabtai, Artzenu (Hebrew: "Our Land")
Adam Zagajewski, Without End: New and Selected Poems (Farrar, Straus & Giroux); a New York Times "notable book of the year"
Poems from these 75 poets were in The Best American Poetry 2002, David Lehman, editor; Robert Creeley, guest editor:
Han Dong:
Baba zai tianshang kan wo ("Daddy's Watching Me in Heaven"), Hebei: jiaoyu chubanshe,
Jiaocha paodong ("Running Criss-cross"), Dunhuang: wenyi chubanshe
He Xiaozhu, 6 ge dongci, huo pingguo ("6 Verbs, or Apples"), Hebei: jiaoyu chubanshe
Jimu Langge, Jingqiaoqiao de zuolun ("The silent revolver"), Hebei: jiaoyu chubanshe
Denise Desautels, Pendant la mort;;, Montréal: Québec Amérique
Madeleine Gagnon, Le chant de la terre : Poèmes choisis 1978–2002, anthologie préparée par Paul Chanel Malenfant, Montréal, Typo
Pierre Nepveu, Lignes aériennes, Montréal: Éditions du Noroît
Madeleine Ouellette-Michalska, Le cycle des migrations, Montréal: Le Noroît
Jean Royer, Poèmes de veille, Montréal: Le Noroît
Chris Wallace-Crabbe, La Poésie Australienne, Valenciennes: Presses Universitaires, (with Simone Kadi), French translation of the work of this Australian poet
In each section, listed in alphabetical order by first name:
Gulzar, Raat Pashmine Ki, New Delhi: Rupa& Co.; in both Urdu and Hindi
Kunwar Narain, In Dino, New Delhi: Rajkamal Prakashan, ISBN 81-267-0594-9
Rituraj, Leela Mukharvinda, New Delhi: Medha Books
Vinod Kumar Shukla, Atrikt Nahin, New Delhi: Vani Prakashan
Bharat Majhi, Saralarekha, Bhubaneswar: Paschima; Oriya-language
Chandrakanta Murasingh, Ruphaini Buduk Ani Nogo, Agartala: Tripura Publisher: Agartala; Kokborok-language
Gulzar, Raat Pashmine Ki, New Delhi: Rupa& Co.; in both Urdu and Hindi
Joy Goswami, Horiner Jonyo Ekok, Kolkata: Ananda Publishers, ISBN 81-7756-240-1; Bengali-language
K. Satchidanandan, Malayalam-language:
Bharateeya Kavitayile Pratirodha Paramparyam, ("The Tradition of Dissent of Indian Poetry"); scholarship
Vikku, ("Stammer")
K. Siva Reddy; Telugu-language:
Antarjanam, Hyderabad: Jhari Poetry Circle
Vrittalekhini, Hyderabad: Jhari Poetry Circle
Kutti Revathi, Mulaigal ("Breasts"). Chennai: Thamizhini; Tamil-language
Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih; Kahsi-language:
Ka Samoi jong ka Lyer ("The Season of the Wind"), Shillong: Author
Ki Mawsiang ka Sohra ("The Ancient Rocks of Cherra"), Shillong: Author
Ki Jingkynmaw (Remembrances), Shillong: S. R. Lanong
Nirendranath Chakravarti, Dekha Hobey, Kolkata: Ananda Publishers; Bengali-language
Yash Sharma, Bedi Pattan Sanjh Mallah, publisher: Vaasu Prakashan, Jammu; Dogri-language
Poland
Ewa Lipska, Uwaga: stopień, Krakow: Wydawnictwo literackie
Czesław Miłosz, Druga przestrzen ("The Second Space"); Cracow: Znak
Tadeusz Różewicz, Szara strefa ("Gray Zone"), Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Dolnośląskie
Jarosław Marek Rymkiewicz, Zachód słońca w Milanówku ("Sunset in Milanówek"), Warsaw: Sic!
Christoph Buchwald, general editor, and Lutz Seiler, guest editor, Jahrbuch der Lyrik 2003 ("Poetry Yearbook 2003"), publisher: Beck; anthology
Klaus Høeck, Projekt Perseus, publisher: Arena; Denmark
Rami Saari, Kamma, Kamma milxama ("So Much, So Much War"), Israel
Maria Luisa Spaziani, Poesie dalla mano sinistra, Italy
Wisława Szymborska: Chwila ("Moment"), Poland
Søren Ulrik Thomsen, Det værste og det bedste, illustrated by Ib Spang Olsen; Denmark
C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Robert Gray, Afterimages
Dinny O'Hearn Poetry Prize: After Images by Robert Gray
Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Alan Wearne, The Lovemakers
Mary Gilmore Prize: Geraldine McKenzie, Duty
Gerald Lampert Award
Archibald Lampman Award
Atlantic Poetry Prize
The office of Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate is instituted, George Bowering is the first appointee and will serve until 2004
See 2002 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
Griffin Poetry Prize: Canada: Christian Bök, Eunoia; International, in the English Language: Alice Notley, Disobedience
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 category winner this year) First-book award for poetry: Chris Price, Husk, Auckland University Press
Cholmondeley Award: Moniza Alvi, David Constantine, Liz Lochhead, Brian Patten
Eric Gregory Award: Caroline Bird, Christopher James, Jacob Polley, Luke Heeley, Judith Lal, David Leonard Briggs, Eleanor Rees, Kathryn Simmonds
Forward Poetry Prize Best Collection): Peter Porter, Max is Missing (Picador); Best First Collection: Tom French, Touching the Bones (The Gallery Press)
Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Peter Porter
T. S. Eliot Prize (United Kingdom and Ireland): Alice Oswald, Dart
Whitbread Award for poetry (United Kingdom):
Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize awarded to Shao Wei for Pulling a Dragon's Teeth
Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry, Grace Schulman
AML Awards for poetry to Kimberly Johnson for Leviathan with a Hook
Arthur Rense Prize for poetry awarded to B.H. Fairchild by the American Academy of Arts and Letters
Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry, Timothy Donnelly, "His Long Imprison'd Thought"
Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, Alice Fulton for Felt
Brittingham Prize in Poetry, Anna George Meek, Acts of Contortion
Frost Medal: Galway Kinnell
National Book Award for poetry (United States): Ruth Stone, In the Next Galaxy
Poet Laureate of Virginia: George Garrett, two year appointment 2002 to 2004
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Carl Dennis, Practical Gods
Robert Fitzgerald Prosody Award: Paul Fussell
Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize: Lisel Mueller
Wallace Stevens Award: Ruth Stone
Whiting Awards: Elizabeth Arnold, David Gewanter, Joshua Weiner
William Carlos Williams Award: Li-Young Lee, Book of My Nights (American Poets Continuum), Judge: Carolyn Kizer
Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets: Sharon Olds
Grand Austrian State Prize for Literature (2001 prize given this year): Gert Jonke
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
February 9 – Ale Ahmad Suroor, 90 (born 1911), Indian Urdu-language poet
May 1 – Ebrahim Al-Arrayedh (إبراهيم العريّض) (born 1908), Bahraini poet
June 14 – June Jordan, 65 (born 1936), Jamaican American poet, of breast cancer
June 27 – Alan Brunton, 55 (born 1946), New Zealand poet and scriptwriter, died on visit to Amsterdam
July 6 – Kenneth Koch, 77 (born 1925), American poet, of leukemia
July 14 – Nabakanta Barua, also known as Ekhud Kokaideu, 75 (born 1926), Indian Assamese-language novelist and poet
August 25 – Dorothy Hewett 79 (born 1923), Australian feminist writer
September 27 – Charles Henri Ford, 89 (born 1908), American novelist, poet, filmmaker, photographer and collage artist
October 21 – Harbhajan Singh, 82 (born 1920), Punjabi poet, critic, cultural commentator and translator
October 28 – Annada Shankar Ray, 98 (born 1905), Bengali poet
December 9 – Stan Rice, 60 (born 1942), American painter, educator, poet, husband of author Anne Rice, of brain cancer
