1969 in poetry

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

yp1=1966
yp2=1967
yp3=1968
year=1969
ya1=1970
ya2=1971
ya3=1972
dp3=1930s
dp2=1940s
dp1=1950s
d=1960s
da=0
dn1=1970s
dn2=1980s
dn3=1990s|

Events

* FIELD magazine founded at Oberlin College
* Charles Bukowski quits his day job as a Post Office clerk in Los Angeles to embark on a writing career after being promised a $100 stipend from Black Sparrow Press. He said at the time: "I have one of two choices — stay in the post office and go crazy ... or stay out here and play at writer and starve. I decided to starve." [ [http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/bukowski.htm] Poets Graves Web site, Web page titled "Charles Bukowski", accessed November 11, 2006]
* Howard Nemerov named Edward Mallinckrodt Distringuished University Professor of English and Distinguished Poet in Residence at Washington University in St. Louis, posts which he will hold until his death in 1991
* The Kenyon Review is closed by Kenyon College after 30 years; it will be restarted by the college in 1979.
* Sir Arthur Bliss writes a cantata "The world is charged with the grandeur of God", from Gerard Manley Hopkins' sonnet of the same first line
* Louise Bogan, retires after 38 years as poetry critic for "The New Yorker"
* Alexander Tvardovsky, editor of "Novy Mir", a Soviet literary magazine, is under attack this year and threatened with dismissal for "spreading cosmopolitan ideas", for "mocking the Soviet peoples' most sacred feelings" and for "denigrating Soviet patriotism". He responded that he was the "real patriot" and was opposed to "reactionary, nationalistic, neo-Slavophil" literary currents. ["1970 Britannica Book of the Year", covering events of 1969, "Literature" article, "Soviet" section, page 485]

Works published in English

=Canada=

* Milton Acorn, "I've Tasted My Blood"
* George Bowering, "The Gangs of Kosmos"
* Phyllis Gotlieb, "Ordinary, Moving"
* Ralph Gustafson, "Ixion's Wheel"
* Irving Layton, "The Whole Bloody Bird", mix of verse and prose observations about living in the Middle East and Canada, and a selection of aphorisms
* Gwendolyn MacEwen, "The Shadow Maker"
* Tom Marshall, "The Silences of Fire"
* Alden Nowlan, "The Mysterious Naked Man"
* Michael Ondaatje, "The Man with Seven Toes", Toronto: Coach House PressWeb page titled [http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=5142 "Archive: Michael Ondaatje (1943- )"] at the Poetry Foundation website, accessed May 7, 2008]
* Raymond Souster, "So Far So Good"
* Miriam Waddington, "Say Yes"

=United Kingdom=

* Donald Davies, "Essex Poems"
* Seamus Heaney, "Door into the Dark"
* Douglas Dunn, "Terry Street"
* David Harsent, "A Violent Country"
* Barry Cole, "Moonsearch"
* James Fenton, "Put Thou Thy Tears Into My Bottle", poetry [http://www.jamesfenton.com/books/] Web page titled "Books by Fenton" at the James Fenton Web site, accessed October 11, 2007]
* Seamus Heaney:
** "Door into the Dark", Faber & Faber
** "A Lough Neagh Sequence", Phoenix
* Molly Holden, "To Make me Grieve"
* Edward Storey, "North Bank Night"
* David Sutton, "Out on a Limb"
* Roger McGough, "Watchwords"
* Adrian Henri, "Tonight at Noon"
* Christopher Logue, "Numbers"
* Anselm Hollo, "The Coherences"
* Brian Patten, "Notes to the Hurrying Man"
* Alan Brownjohn, "Sandgrains on a Tray"
* Jon Stallworthy, "Root and Branch"
* Iain Crichton Smith, "From Bourgeois Land"
* Sydney Tremayne, "The Turning Sky"
* Laurence Lerner, "Selves"
* Elizabeth Jennings, "The Animals' Arrival"
* Basil Bunting, "Collected Poems"
* John Hewitt, "Collected Poems"
* Roy Fisher, "Collected Poems"

"Children of Albion" poetry anthology

"", edited by Michael Horovitz, was the first anthology to present a wide-ranging selection of the new British Poetry Revival movement. Poems from these writers were included in it:

United States

* W. H. Auden, "City without Walls"
* Ted Berrigan, "Peace: Broadside"
* John Berryman:
** "The Dream Songs" (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
** "His Toy, His Dream His Rest" (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
* Elizabeth Bishop, "The Complete Poems" (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)
* Paul Blackburn, "Two New Poems"
* Louise Bogan, "The Blue Estuaries"
* Lucille Clifton, "Good Times", selected as one of the year's best books by The New York Times
* Robert Creeley, "Pieces" [Everett, Nicholas, [http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/creeley/life.htm "Robert Creeley's Life and Career"] at the "Modern American Poetry" website, accessed May 1, 2008]
* Ed Dorn:
** "Gunslinger: Book II", Black Sparrow 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]
** "The Midwest Is That Space Between the Buffalo Statler and the Lawrence Eldridge", T. Williams
** "The Cosmology of Finding Your Spot", Cottonwood
** "Twenty-four Love Songs", Frontier Press
* Ed Dorn and Gordon Brotherston, translators, "Jose Emilio Pacheco, Tree Between Two Walls", Black Sparrow Press
* LeRoi Jones, editor, "Black Magic: Poetry, 1961-1967"
* Hugh Kenner, "The Invisible Poet: T. S. Eliot" (revised from the 1959 edition), Canadian writing and published in the United States (criticism)
* James Merrill, "The Fire Screen"
* Vladimir Nabokov, "Poems and Problems", ISBN 0-07-045724-7
* Lorine Niedecker, "T & G: Collected Poems, 1936-1966"
* Ron Padgett, "Great Balls of Fire", Holt, Rinehart & Winston
* Charles Reznikoff, "By the Well of Living & Seeing" and "The Fifth Book of the Maccabees"
* Aram Saroyan, "Pages", Random House
* James Schuyler, "Freely Espousing"
* Gary Snyder, "Smokey the Bear Sutra"
* Louis Zukofsky, in collaboration with his wife, Celia, publishes an experimental Latin translation "Catullus"

Other English language

* James K. Baxter, "Rock Woman", New Zealand
* Charles Brasch: "Not Far Off: Poems", Christchurch: Caxton Press, New Zealand [http://www.library.auckland.ac.nz/subjects/nzp/nzlit2/brasch.htm Web page titled "Charles Brasch: New Zealand Literature File"] at the University of Auckland Library website, accessed April 26, [2008]
* Les Murray, "The Weatherboard Cathedral", Australia [http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=216] Les Murray Web page at The Poetry Archive Web site, accessed October 15, 2007]
* Wole Soyinka, "Poems from Prison" (Nigeria)

Works published in other languages

French language

=Canada=

* Gemma Tremblay, "Les Seins gorgés"
* Jean-Guy Pilon:
** "Comme Eau retenue" (Paris), a republishing of all of his previous books of poems in one volume
** "Saison pour la continuelle"
*Guy Robert, five books of poems
* Pierre Chatillon, "Soleil de bivouac"
* André Saint-Germain, "Sens unique"
* André Major, "Poèmes pour durer"

=France=

* Philippe Chabaneix, "Les matins et les soirs"
* R. Houdelot, "Amour en profil perdu"
* M. Beguey, "La Rose ardente"
* G. Belloni, "La Route du feu"
* S. de Ricard, "Les Chemins perdus"
* M. Berry, "Isabelle"
* P. Dumaine, "Inscriptions"
* Luc Bérimont, "Un Feu vivant"
* René Char, "La Pluie giboyeuse"
* Andrée Chedid:
** "Contre-chat"
** "Seul le Visage"
* Loys Masson, "La Croix de rose rouge" (posthumous)
* Robert Sabatier won the Grand Prix de Poésie for:
** "Les Poisons délectables"
** "Les Châteaux des millions d'années"

Anthologies

* Marc Alyn, editor, "La Nouvelle Poésie française"
* J. Loisy, editor, "Un Certain Choix de poèmes"

Germany

* Hilde Domin, editor, "Doppelinterpretationen: Das zeitgenössische deutsche Gedicht zwischen Autor und Leser", Frankfurt and Bonn: Athenaum (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, "German Poetry" article, "Criticism in German" section, p 474; Source states "1969" but sources on the Web state the first edition was in "1966" and a paperback edition was published in 1969]
* H. Lamprecht, editor, "Deutschland, Deutschland: Politische Gedichte", 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, "Anthologies in German" section, pp 473-474]
* Albrecht Schöne, "Über politische Lyrik im 20. Jahrhundert", Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (scholarship)

Hebrew

* P.Naveh, editor, "Lol Shirai Yaakov Frances", the works of a seventeenth-century Italian Hebrew poet
* Rachel u-Michtaveha, "Shirai Rachel u-Michtaveha" (posthumous)
* A. Broides, "Mivhar Shirim"
* D. Chomsky, "ba-Et u-Veona"
* K. A. Bertini, "Bakbuk Al Pnai ha-Mayim"
* Y. Amichai, "Ahshav be-Raash"
* Y. Mar, "Panim le-Kan" (posthumous)
* D. Ravikovich, "ha-Sefer ha-Shelishi"
* N. Stuchkoff, compiler, "Otzar ha-Safa ha-Ivrit" (United States)
* G. Churgin, "Ojkai Mahshava" (United States)
* R. Ben-Yosef, (An American Jew living in Israel) "Derech Eretz"

=Italy=

* Guido Ceronetti, "Poesie, frammenti, poesie separate"
* Giuseppe Favati, "Controbuio"
* Albino Pierro, "Eccò 'a morte" ("Why Death?"), in the Tursi language (Lucania)

Other

* Miguel de Unamuno, edited by Roberto Paoli, "Poesie", scholarly survey of his verse, with a selection of his Spanish poems with Italian translations

=Norway=

* Paal Brekke, editor, "Norsk lyrikk nå" (anthology of Norwegian poetry of the 1960s)
* Tarjei Vesaas, collected poems
* Georg Johannesen, collected poems

Portuguese

Brazil

* Gregorio de Matos (1633-1696), edited by James Amado, "Obras Completas"
* Decio Pignatari, "Exercicio Findo"

Russia

* Evgeni Vinokurov, "Selected Poems"
* Vladimir Sokolov, "Snow in September"
* Konstantin Vanshenkin, "Experience"
* Aleksandr Tvardovsky, "Lyrical Poems"
* Andrei Voznesensky, "I Can't Write" a poem published in "Phoenix", a broadsheet newspaper
* Robert Rozhdestvenski, "Poem About Different Points of View", a long poem published in "Yunost"

panish poetry

=Spain=

* Matilde Camus:
** "Voces" (Voices)
** "Vuelo de estrellas" (Stars flight)

=Latin America=

Mexico

* Octavio Paz, "Ladera Este"
* R. Bonifaz Nuño, "El ala del tigre"
* Rosario Castellanos, "Materia memorable"
* Carlos Pellicer, "Antología"
* Efraín Huerta, a collection
* M. Michelena, a collection
* M. Guardia, a collection
* Gabriel Zaid, a book of new poetry
* Homero Aridjis, a book of new poetry
* M. A. Montes de Oca, a book of new poetry
* Juan Bañuelos, a book of new poetry
* José Emilio Pacheco, a book of new poetry

Other Latin America

* Jorge Luis Borges:
** "Nueva antología personal"
** "Elogio de las sombras"
* A. Pizarnik, "Extracción de la piedra de la locura"
* F. Urondo, "Adolecer"
* Pablo Neruda, "Fin de mundo"
* Luis Cardoza y Aragón, "Dibujos de ciego" (Guatemala)
* Ernesto Cardenal, "Homenaje a los indios americanos" (Nicaragua)
* P. A. Cuadra, "Poesía escogida" (Nicaragua)
* César Velejo, "Obra poética completa" (Peru)
* Roque Dalton, "Taberna y otros lugares" (El Salvador)

=Sweden=

* Lars Norén, "Revolver"
* Majken Johansson, "Omtal"
* Elsa Grave, "Vid nödläge"
* Reidar Ekner, "Andhämtning, bilder"

Yiddish

* Avrom Sutskever, "Poems from the Dead Sea"
* Chaim Grade, "On My Way to You"
* Moyshe Knaphcys, a new collection
* Leyb Morgentory, a new collection
* Kh. L. Fuks, a new collection
* I. Emiot, a new collection
* L. Kusman, a new collection
* J. A. Rontsh, a new collection
* M. M. Shafir, a new collection

Other Yiddish

* Poet Yankev Glatshteyn in an essay, said the poet should be a spokesman for his generation, and his poetry should be a poetry of involvement.

Other

* Inger Christensen, "Det" (Denmark)
* Kirsten Thorup, "Love from Trieste" (Denmark)
* Kurt Marti, "Leichenreden" (Switzerland) in German, a collection of humorous verse variations of death notices and conventional funeral orations.

Awards and honors

=Canada=

* See 1969 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

=United Kingdom=

* Bollingen Prize: John Berryman and Karl Shapiro
* Cholmondeley Award: Derek Walcott, Tony Harrison
* Eric Gregory Award: Gavin Bantock, Jeremy Hooker, Jenny King, Neil Powell, Landeg E. White
* Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Stevie Smith

United States

* National Book Award for Poetry: John Berryman, "His Toy, His Dream, His Rest"
* Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: George Oppen: "Of Being Numerous"
* Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets: Richard Eberhart and Anthony Hecht

Births

* Stephanie Bolster, Canadian poet
* Matthias Goritz, German poet
* Hauke Huckstadt, German poet
* Davis McCombs
* Natalie Wilson
* C. Dale Young

Deaths

* February 19 — Kazimierz Wierzynski, 74, Polish poet
* March 12 — André Salmon, 87, French poet, critic and novelist
* March 25 — Max Eastman, 86, American poet and editor
* April 22 — Rolfe Humphries, 74, of emphysema;
* May 4 — Sir Osbert Sitwell, 76, of a heart attack
* May 26 — Henry Rago, [http://www.henryrago.com] American poet and editor of "Poetry"
* July 11 — Guilherme de Almeida, called the "prince of Brazilian poetry"
* July 23 — Floyd Bell, 82, of a heart ailment;
* October 21 — Jack Kerouac, influential Beat Generation American poet, writer, novelist
* Date not known:
** Loys Masson (born 1915), French poet
** Vivian de Sola Pinto, British poet, memoirist, literary critic and historian

ee also

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

Notes