Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).
Events
January 20 – Chittadhar Hridaya begins a 6-year sentence of imprisonment in Kathmandu for writing poetry in Nepal Bhasa during which time he secretly composes his Buddhist epic Sugata Saurabha in the same language Spring Tambimuttu's Poetry London publishes a special 'Poets in Uniform' issue. The Antioch Review is founded as a literary magazine at Antioch College in Ohio May 5 – Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin meet while both reading English at St John's College, Oxford August 18–19-year-old Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr., American poet serving in Britain with the Royal Canadian Air Force (which he has joined before the United States has officially entered World War II), flies a high-altitude test flight in a Spitfire V from RAF Llandow in Wales and afterwards writes the sonnet "High Flight" about the experience (completed by September 3); on December 11 he dies in a collision over England September 6–7 – Under Nazi occupation, Yiddish poet Abraham Sutzkever is among the Polish Jews interned in the Vilna Ghetto. He will escape and join the resistance in 1943. During the Nazi era, Sutzkever writes over 80 poems, whose manuscripts he manages to save for postwar publication c. October – The first known reference to Babi Yar in poetry is written soon after the Babi Yar massacres by the young Jewish-Ukrainian poet from Kiev and an eyewitness, Liudmila Titova (). Her poem "Babi Yar" will be discovered only in the 1990s December – During the Siege of Leningrad, Yakov Druskin, ill and starving, and Maria Malich, the second wife of Russian avant-garde poet Danil Kharms (arrested this summer on suspicion of treason and imprisoned in the psychiatric ward at Leningrad Prison No. 1 where he will die in 1942), trudge across the city to Kharms' bombed-out apartment building and collect a trunk full of manuscripts which they hide through the 1940s and 1950s, even bringing them to Siberia, then covertly show them to others in the 1960s. Their actions save much of Kharms' work for posterity as well as that of fellow poet Alexander Vvedensky (of whom only about a quarter of his output survives). Vvedensky, arrested in September in Kharkov for "counterrevolutionary agitation", was evacuated but died of pleurisy en route The surrealist magazine VVV is founded in New York City by French poet André Breton and Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst and David Hare
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 Anne Marriott, Calling Adventurers!, Toronto: Ryerson Press."Anne Marriott (1913–1997)", Canadian Woman Poets, BrockU.ca, Web, April 21, 2011. E. J. Pratt, Dunkirk, Toronto: Macmillan."Bibliography," Selected Poems of E. J. Pratt, Peter Buitenhuis ed., Toronto: Macmillan, 1968, 207–208. Bertram Warr, Yet a Little Onwards, Broadsheet No. 3, Resurgam Younger Poets series, Favil Press.Gustafson, Ralph, The Penguin Book of Canadian Verse, revised edition, 1967, Baltimore, Maryland: Penguin Books
India, in English
Sri Aurobindo, Poems ( Poetry in English ), Hyderabad: Government Central PressVinayak Krishna Gokak, The Golden Treasury Of Indo-Anglian Poetry (1828–1965), p 313, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi (1970, first edition; 2006 reprint), , retrieved August 6, 2010 Bimal Chandra Bose, Thought-Ray ( Poetry in English ), Calcutta: Biman Panthi Publishing HouseVinayak Krishna Gokak, The Golden Treasury Of Indo-Anglian Poetry (1828–1965), p 319, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi (1970, first edition; 2006 reprint), , retrieved August 6, 2010 Baldoon Dhingra, Comes Ever the Dawn ( Poetry in English ), Lahore: Ripon PressNaik, M. K., Perspectives on Indian poetry in English, p. 230, (published by Abhinav Publications, 1984, , ), retrieved via Google Books, June 12, 2009 Manjeri Sundaraman, Brief Orisons ( Poetry in English ), Madras: Hurley Press Meary James Thurairajah Tambimuttu, editor, Out of This War ( Poetry in English ), London: Fortune Press; anthology; Indian poetry published in the United Kingdom Hariprasad Sastri, editor and translator, Indian Mystic Verse, (3rd revised and enlarged edition 1984) anthologyJoshi, Irene, compiler, "Poetry Anthologies" , "Poetry Anthologies" section, "University Libraries, University of Washington" website, "Last updated May 8, 1998", retrieved June 16, 2009. June 19, 2009.
United Kingdom W. H. Auden, New Year Letter (sometimes incorrectly called New Year Letters, with an "s"), May (published as The Double Man in the United States in March),Cowley, Malcolm, review in The New Republic, April 7, 1941, pp 473–474, as it appears in Haffenden, John, W. H. Auden: The Critical Heritage, p 309, book reprint published by Routledge, 1997, , retrieved via Google Books, February 5, 2009 English poet living in the United States Laurence Binyon, The North Star, and Other Poems Edmund Blunden, Poems 1930–1940 Lilian Bowes Lyon, Tomorrow is a Revealing T. S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages, published in New English Weekly, republished in Four Quartets, 1944 A Choice of Kipling's Verse by T. S. Eliot, published December 1941 G. S. Fraser, The Fatal Landscape and Other Poems Robert Greacen, The Bird, Northern Ireland poet J. F. Hendry and Henry Treece, editors, The White Horseman, poetry anthology featuring poets in the New Apocalyptics movement Louis MacNeice, Plant and Phantom John Pudney, "For Johnny" Keidrych Rhys, editor, Poems from the Forces: a collection of verses by serving members of the Navy, Army and Air Force W. R. Rodgers, Awake! and Other Poems, Northern Ireland poet Alan Ross, Summer Thunder A. L. Rowse, Poems of a Decade Sydney Goodsir Smith, Skail Wind, in Scots and English Meary James Thurairajah Tambimuttu, editor, Out of This War, London: Fortune Press; anthology; Indian poetry in English, published in the United Kingdom Terence Tiller, Poems, New Hogarth Library 5 Vernon Watkins, The Ballad of the Mari Lwyd, and Other Poems
United States W. H. Auden, The Double Man, published in March; later published as New Year Letter in the United Kingdom in May; English poet living in the United States Stephen Vincent Benét, A Summons to the FreeLudwig, Richard M., and Clifford A. Nault, Jr., Annals of American Literature: 1602–1983, 1986, New York: Oxford University Press John Peale Bishop, Selected Poems Louise Bogan, Poems and New Poems Paul Engle, West of Midnight Kenneth Fearing, Dagger of the Mind John Gould Fletcher, South Star Robinson Jeffers, Be Angry at the Sun Edgar Lee Masters, Illinois Poems Josephine Miles, Poems on Several Occasions Edna St. Vincent Millay, Collected Sonnets Marianne Moore, What Are Years John G. Neihardt, The Song of Jed Smith Carl Rakosi, Selected Poems John Crowe Ransom, The New Criticism, criticism Charles Reznikoff, Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down, self-published Theodore Roethke, Open House Winfield Townley Scott, Wind the Clock Ridgely Torrence, Poems Mark Van Doren, The Mayfield Deer William Carlos Williams, The Broken Span Louis Zukofsky, 55 Poems
Other in English Allen Curnow, Island Time (Caxton), New ZealandAllen Curnow Web page at the New Zealand Book Council website, accessed April 21, 2008 Lesbia Harford (d. 1927), The Poems of Lesbia Harford, Australia Rex Ingamells and John Ingamells, At a Boundary, Adelaide, written by two brothers, includes Reginald Ingamells' "The Gangrened People", Australia Donagh MacDonagh, Veterans, and other poems, Ireland R. A. K. Mason, The Dark Will Lighten, New Zealand
Works published in other languages Listed by nation where the work was first published and again by the poet's native land, if different; substantially revised works listed separately:
France Louis Aragon, Le Creve-Coeur Paul Éluard, pen name of Eugène Grindel, Le Livre ouvert, published from 1940 to this yearHartley, Anthony, editor, The Penguin Book of French Verse: 4: The Twentieth Century, Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1967 Luc Estang, Puissance du matinBree, Germaine, Twentieth-Century French Literature, translated by Louise Guiney, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1983 Léon-Paul Fargue, Haute Solitude
Indian subcontinent Including all of the British colonies that later became India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Listed alphabetically by first name, regardless of surname:
Hindi Girija Kumar Mathur, Manjir, Indian, Hindi Sumitra Kumari Sinha, Vihag, Hindi Syed Kalbe Mustapha, Malik Muhammad Ja'isi, biography in Urdu of Malik Mohammad Jaisi, a Hindi poet of the 15th century, with descriptions of the poet's works
Other languages on the Indian subcontinent Abanindranath Tagore and Rani Chanda, a memoir describing the lives of the family that included Rabindranath Tagore; a companion volume to Joda Sakor Dhare 1944 and Apan Katha 1946; BengaliDas, Sisir Kumar, "A Chronology of Literary Events / 1911–1956", in Das, Sisir Kumar and various, History of Indian Literature: 1911–1956: struggle for freedom: triumph and tragedy, Volume 2, 1995, published by Sahitya Akademi, , retrieved via Google Books on December 23, 2008 Ananta Pattanayak, Tarpana Kare Aji, Indian, Oriya-language Baidyanath Mishra, also known as "Yatri", a dramatic monologue given by a child-widow character, told in colloquial language, a new development in Maithili poetry Bawa Balwant, Maha Nac, Punjabi-language poems inspired by Marxist and left-leaning politics Darshan Singh Awara, Main Bagi Han, Punjabi-language poems reflecting anger toward society as well as religious traditions and institutions Dimbeswar Neog, Svahid Karbala, Assamese-language narrative poem on a tragedy at Karbala and the martyrdom of Hussain Jyotsna Shukla, Akashnan Phool, Indian poet writing in GujaratiMohan, Sarala Jag, Chapter 4: "Twentieth-Century Gujarati Literature" (Google books link), in Natarajan, Nalini, and Emanuel Sampath Nelson, editors, Handbook of Twentieth-century Literatures of India, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996, , retrieved December 10, 2008 Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Naqsh-e-Faryadi, Indian, Urdu-language Hari Daryani, Hariscandra Jivana Katha, Sindhi-language (India) M. U. Malkani, Gitanjali, translation into Sindhi from the English of Rabindranath Thakur's book of the same name Mohammad Mumtaz Ali, Amir Minasi, biography of the Urdu poet Amir Minai (1828–1900), including descriptions of Minai's works; written in Urdu Narayan Bezbarua, Sakti Singa, Indian, Assamese Pritam Singh Safir, Kattak Kunjam, Indian, Punjabi-language Sri Chandra Singh, "Vadali", a Rajasthani-language nature poem in 130 verses which influenced Rajasthani poets for a generation Wahab Pare of Hajin, Kashmiri Shahnama Firdosi, an adaptation in Kashmiri of the Persian classic poem by Firdousi; with a canto added at the end
Spanish language José Santos Chocano, Oro de Indias, PeruWeb page titled "José Santos Chocano" at the Jaume University website, retrieved August 29, 2011 Gerardo Diego, Alondra de verdad ("True Lark"), 42 sonnets on diverse topics; SpainDebicki, Andrew P., Spanish Poetry of the Twentieth Century: Modernity and Beyond, University Press of Kentucky, 1995, , retrieved via Google Books, November 21, 2009 Federico García Lorca, Diván del Tamarit (Spanish for "The Diván of Tamarit", written in 1936, published posthumously this year; Spain Gabriela Mistral, Antología: Selección de Gabriela Mistral, Santiago, Chile: Zig ZagWeb page titled "Bibliografia" , at the Gabriela Mistral Foundation website, retrieved September 22, 2010
Other Amir Hamzah, Buah Rindu, Dutch East Indies Pier Paolo Pasolini, Versi a Casarsa, Friulian poetry published in Italy Nima Yooshij, "Quqnūs", Iran
Awards and honors