1961 in poetry

yearbox2
in?=in poetry
in2?=in literature
cp=19th century
c=20th century
cf=21st century

yp1=1958
yp2=1959
yp3=1960
year=1961
ya1=1962
ya2=1963
ya3=1964
dp3=1930s
dp2=1940s
dp1=1950s
d=1960s
da=0
dn1=1970s
dn2=1980s
dn3=1990s|

Events

*Sylvia Plath suffers a miscarriage
* Keith and Rosmarie Waldrop buy a secondhand printing press and start "Burning Deck" magazine in the United States.

Works published in English

=Canada=

* Earle Binney, "Ice Cod Bell on Stone""Britannica Book of the Year 1962", covering events of 1961, published by the "Encyclopaedia Britannica", 1962; articles cited: "American Literature", "Canadian Literature", "English Literature", "French Literature", "German Literature", "Italian Literature", "Jewish Literature", "Latin American Literature", "Soviet Literature", "Spanish Literature", "Obituaries"]
* Arthur Bourinot, "Poems: Paul Bunyan, Three Lincoln Poems and Other Verse"
* Leonard Cohen, "The Spice-Box of Earth"
* Robert Finch
**"Dover Beach Revisited", a meditation on the significance of Matthew Arnold
**"Acis in Oxford and Other Poems"
* Ralph Gustafson, "Rivers Among Rocks"
* Daryl Hine, "The Devil's Picture Books"
* Irving Layton, "The Swinging Flesh"
* Eli Mandel and Jean Guy Pilon, "Poetry 62", an anthology
* D. Pacey, "Creative Writing in Canada", revised edition (scholarship) [Preminger, Alex and T.V.F. Brogan, et al., editors, "The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics", 1993, Princeton University Press and MJF Books, "Canadian Poetry" article, English "Anthologies" section, p 164]
* Dorothy Roberts, "Twice to Flame"

=Ireland=

* Austin Clarke, "Later Poems", Dublin: Dolmen Press, IrelandM. L. Rosenthal, "The New Poets: American and British Poetry Since World War II", New York: Oxford University Press, 1967, "Selected Bibliography: Individual Volumes by Poets Discussed", pp 334-340]
* Thomas Kinsella:
** "Downstream", Dublin: Dolmen Press
** "Poems and Translations", New York: Atheneum

=United Kingdom=

* James K. Baxter, "Howrah Bridge and Other Poems", London: Oxford University Press, New Zealand poet published in the United Kingdom
* Thomas Blackburn, "A Smell of Burning"
* Alan Brownjohn, "The Railings"
* Charles Causley, "Johnny Alleluia"
* Donald Davie, "New and Selected Poems", Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press
* Ian Hamilton Finlay, "Glasgow Beasts, An a Burd", Edinburgh: Wild Flounder Press
* John Fuller, "Fairground Music"
* Allen Ginsberg:
** "Empty Mirror: Early Poems", New York: Totem/Corinth
** "Kaddish and Other Poems", San Francisco: City Lights Books
* Robert Graves, "More Poems 1961"
* Thom Gunn, "My Sad Captains", London: Faber and Faber; University of Chicago Press
* Ralph Hodgson, "Collected Poems"
* David Holbrook, "Imaginings"
* Graham Hough, "Legends and Pastorals"
* Edward Jennings, "Song for a Birth or a Death"
* Edward Lucie-Smith, "A Tropical Childhood", including "The Witnesses", "The Fault", and "On Looking at Stubb's Anatomy of the Horse"
* Louis MacNeice, "Solstices"
* John Montague] , "The Nature of Cold Weather", London: MacGibbon and Kee
* Peter Porter, "Once Bitten, Twice Bitten", by an Australian living in England, Northwood, Middlesex: Scorpion Press
* Peter Redgrove, "The Collector", London: Routledge and Kegan Paul
* Siegfried Sassoon, "Collected Poems"
* Iain Crichton Smith, "Thistles and Roses"
* Gillian Stoneham, "When That April"
* R.S. Thomas, "Tares"
* Marina Tsvetayeva, "The Selected Poems of Marina Tsvetayeva", translated by Elaine Feinstein, Oxford University Press, first of four editions (and a much-revised fifth edition)
* John Wain, "Weep Before God", including "Time Was", which won second prize in the international Borestone Mountain Poetry awards competition, London: Macmillan

Criticism, scholarship and biography in the United Kingdom

* William Empson, "Milton's God"
* Doris Landley Moore, "The Late Lord Byron"

United States

* Lee Anderson, "Nags Head"
* Helen Bevington, "When Found, Make a Verse Of"
* Paul Blackburn, "The Nets"
* Harold Bloom, John Hollander, editors, "The Wind and the Rain"
* John Ciardi, "In the Stoneworks"
* Leonard Cohen, "The Spice-Box of Earth"
* August Derleth, editor, "Fire and Sleet and Candlelight"
* Hilda Doolittle (H.D.), "Helen in Egypt", a long retelling of the tale in lyrical prose and verse of the Helen of Troy tale
* Ed Dorn, "The Newly Fallen", Totem PressWeb page titled [http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=1837"Archive / Edward Dorn (1929-1999)"] at the Poetry Foundation website, retrieved May 8, 2008]
* Abbie Houston Evans, "Fact of Crystal"
* Arthur Freeman, "Apollonian Poems"
* Allen Ginsberg, "Kaddish and Other Poems"
* Thom Gunn, "My Sad Captains", London: Faber and Faber; University of Chicago Press Briton
* John Hollander, "The Untuning of the Sky" (also see Harold Bloom/John Hollander item above)
* John Holmes, "The Fortune Teller"
* David Ignatow, "Say Pardon"
* LeRoi Jones, "Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note"
* Carolyn Kizer, "The Ungrateful Garden", Bloomington: Indiana University Press
* Denise Levertov, "The Jacob's Ladder", New York: New Directions
* Pablo Neruda, "Odas elementales", translated by C. Lozano and with an introduction by Fernando Alegría
* Lorine Niedecker, "My Friend Tree" (published with help from Ian Hamilton Finlay)
* John Nist, editor, "Modern Brazilian Poetry"
* Charles Olson:
**"The Maximus Poems"
**"The Distances"
* Hyam Plutzik, "Horatio", a narrative monologue basically in blank verse
* Peter Viereck, "The Tree Witch"
* John Hall Wheelock, "The Gardener"
* Richard Wilbur, "Advice to a Prophet"
* James Wright and Robert Bly, translators, "Twenty Poems of Georg Trakl" (Austrian poet writing in German), The Sixties Press

Criticism, scholarship and biography in the United States

* Roger Asselineau, "The Evolution of Walt Whitman"
* Walter Lowenfels, editor, "Walt Whitman's Civil War", Whitman's writing about the war
* Edwin Haviland Miller, "The Correspondence of Walt Whitman" (1842-1875, in two volumes)
* Archibald MacLeish, "Poetry and Experience" (autobiography)

Other in English

* Allen Curnow, editor, "Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse",
* A. D. Hope, "Poems" (Australia)

Works published in other languages

French language

=Canada=

* Rina Lasnier, "Mémoire sans jour"
* Paul Marie Lapointe, "Choix de poèmes"
* Jean Guy Pilon, "La Mouette et le large"

=France=

* Jean Cocteau, "Le Cérémonial espagnol de Phoenix"
* Max Pol Fouchet, "Demeure le Secret"
* Marie Noël, "Chants d'arrière-saison"
* Léopold Sédar Senghor, "Nocturnes"
* Jean Tardieu, "Choix de poèmes"

Criticism, scholarship and biography in France

* André Berry, editor, "Anthologie de la poésie occitane"
* Yves Bonnefoy, "Rimbaud"

Germany

* Clemens Hesselhaus, editor, "Deutsche Lyrik der Moderne: von Nietzsche bis Yvan Goll" Düsseldorf: August Bagel an anthologyPreminger, Alex and T.V.F. Brogan, et al., editors, "The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics", 1993, Princeton University Press and MJF Books, "German Poetry" article, "Criticism in German" section, p 474; source states "1960" but vast majority of academic sources on the Web say "1961" with second edition in 1962]

Criticism, scholarship and biography in Germany

* Wilhelm Emrich, "Protest und Verheissung" (criticism)
* Walter Jens, "Deutsche Literatur der Gegenwart" (criticism)

=Hebrew=

* J. Akavyahu, "Manginot Hazot" ("Midnight Music")
* Anonymous poet from a Soviet Bloc country, "Behilokah Halail" ("As the Night Is Taken"), the poems were clandestinely smuggled into Israel and published
* K. A. Bertini, "Shevil Kahol" ("Blue Path")
* A. Broides, "El ha-Shahar ha-Gonuz" ("Toward the Hidden Dawn")
* Yonah David, "Shirim Le-lo Ahava" ("Poems on Nonlove")
* Israel Efros, "Bain Hofim Nistarim" ("Among Hidden Shores")
* Hayim Guri, "Shoshanat ha-Ruhot" ("Rose of the Winds")
* Yosef Lichtenbaum, "ba-Mishor ha-Govoha" ("On a High Plain")
* E. Lisitzky, "Kemo ha-Yom Rad" ("As the Day Wanes") published in the United States
* Anda Pinkerfield-Amir, "Gadish ve-Omer" ("Sheaf and Measure")
* Gabriel Preil, "Mapat Erew" ("Map of Evening"), published in the United States
* T. Ribner, "Shirim Limzo Et" ("Poems in Search of Time")
* Rena Shani, "Ir Zara" ("Strange City")
* Nathan Zakh, "Shirim Shonim" ("Various")

Criticism, scholarship and biography in Hebrew

* B. Kurzweil, "Bialik ve- Tchernichovsky — Mehkarim be-Shiratam", about aspects of the works of two important poets of the Hebrew literary renaissance

=Italy=

* Attilio Giuliani, editor, "Novissimi", an anthology-cum-manifesto of five poets which, by 1965, was "increasingly regarded as the principal event in Italian poetry in recent times""Britannica Book of the Year 1966", covering events of 1965, published by the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1966]

Portuguese language

Portugal

* Herberto Hélder, "A Colher na Boca" ("The Spoon in the Mouth")
* Mário Cesariny:
** "Poesia"
** "Planisfério e Outros Poemas"

panish language

=Spain=

* María Victoria Atencia, "Cañada de los ingleses"
* Miguel Hernández, a "complete" collection of poems (posthumous)
* Gerardo Diego, "Glosa a Villamediana"

Anthologies in Spain

* Jimenez Martos, editor, "Nuevos poetas españoles", mostly on the work of the "Generation of '54"
* Rafael Montesinos, editor, "Poesía taurina contemporánea", including verse by Miguel Hernández, Diego and García Lorca

=Latin America=

* Roque Dalton, "La ventana en rel rostro" (El Salvador)
* Hernando Domínguez de Camargo, "Obras de Hernando Domínguez de Camargo" (posthumous)
* Octavio Paz, "Libertad bajo palabra" collected poems previously published from 1935 to 1958 in a volume using the title of an earlier book of his
* Carlos A. Velazco, "El corazón de silencio"

Anthologies in Latin America

* "Anuario del cuento mexicano" (Mexico)
* Ginés de Albareda and F. Garfias, editors, "Antología de la poesía hispanoamericana", Volume 8, devoted to Chilean poetry

=Yiddish=

Israel

* Y Fridman, "Di legende fun Neyakh Grin" ("The Legend of Noah Green")
* L. Fuks, editor, "Schemuelbuch", a scholarly edition of this old Yiddish epic
* Avrom Lev, a book of poetry
* Leyb Olitsky, a book of poetry
* Y Papernikov, a book of poetry
* Rikude Potash, a book of poetry
* Arye Shamri, "Funken fun tikun" ("Sparks of Salvation")
* Avrom Sutzkever, "Di gaystike erd" ("The Spiritual Soil")

Elsewhere

* Efrayim Oyerbakh, "Di vayse shtot" ("The White City")
* I. L. Kalushiner, a book of poetry
* Yisroel Emiot, "In nigun ayngehert" ("Listening to the Melody")
* David Sfard, "A zegl in vint" ("A Sail in the Wind") (Poland)

Awards and honors

=United Kingdom=

* Eric Gregory Award: Adrian Mitchell, Geoffrey Hill

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"): Louis Untermeyer appointed this year.
* Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Phyllis McGinley: "Times Three: Selected Verse From Three Decades"
* Bollingen Prize: Yvor Winters
* National Book Award for Poetry: Randall Jarrell, "The Woman at the Washington Zoo"
* Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets: Horace Gregory

Other

* Lenin Prize (Soviet Union): Alexander Tvardovsky for "Za Dalyu dal ..." ("Space Beyond Space")

Births

* May 2 — Lisa Bellear (died 2006), Australian indigenous poet
* date not known:
** Gitaujali Badruddin
** Denise Duhamel
** Steven Heighton, Canadian novelist and poet.
** Maggie Helwig, Canadian novelist and poet.
** Jackie Kay, Scottish poet and novelist.

Deaths

* April 30 — Jessie R. Fauset (born 1885), novelist and poet
*September 27 — Hilda Doolittle, aka "H.D.", 75, American poet, novelist and memoirist, of a heart attack
* December 24 — Robert Hillyer, 66, American poet
* date not known — Kenneth Fearing, 58, American poet and writer

ee also

* Poetry
* List of poetry awards
* List of years in poetry

Notes