1923 in poetry

-- From Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", first published this year in his collection New Hampshire

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).

Events

• In Paris, Basil Bunting meets Ezra Pound, whose poems will have a strong influence on Bunting throughout his career.
• E. C. McFarlane and others found the Jamaican Poetry League^[1]

Works published in English

Canada

• Arthur Bourinot, Lyrics from the hills^[2]
• Katherine Hale ed.,Isabella Valancy Crawford
• Thom MacInnes, Complete Poems^[3]
• Marjorie Pickthall, Angels' Shoes, posthumously published^[3]
• E. J. Pratt, Newfoundland Verse, Canada^[4]
• Duncan Campbell Scott, The Witching of Elspie^[3]

Picture of William Butler Yeats published this year, the same year The Cat and the Moon was published

Indian in English

• Ananda Acharya, Usarika ("Dawn-Rhythms") ( Poetry in English ) ,^[5]
• N. M. Chatterjee, India and Other Sonnets ( Poetry in English ), Calcutta ^[6]
• Margaret MacNicol, Poems by Indian Women ( Poetry in English ), Calcutta: Association Press, 98 pages; anthology^[7]
• Oriental Blossoms, London: Heath Cranton; anthology; Indian poetry in English, published in the United Kingdom^[7]
• Puran Singh, Unsung Beads( Poetry in English ) on mystical experiences and with social and political themes^[8]
• K. S. Venkataramani, On the Sand-Dune ( Poetry in English ), Madras: Ganesh and Co.^[9]
• S. K. De, A history of Sanskrit Poetics, one of the earliest accounts of Sanskrit literary theories in English; scholarship^[8]

United Kingdom

• Harold Acton, Aquarium^[10]
• Edmund Blunden, To Nature^[10]
• W. H. Davies, Collected Poems, second series; first series, 1916, see also Collected Poems, 1928; Poems, 934^[10]
• Walter De La Mare, Come Hither: A Collection of Rhymes and Poems for the Young of all Ages (anthology)
• John Drinkwater, Collected Poems, in three volumes, published 1923–1937^[10]
• T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land (1922) first published in the U.K. in book form complete with notes in a limited edition in September 1923 by the Hogarth Press, run by Eliot's friends Leonard and Virginia Woolf, the type handset by Virginia)^[10][11]
• Robert Graves, Whipperginny^[10]
• D. H. Lawrence, Birds, Beasts and Flowers, including "Snake", published in the United Kingdom in November; first published in the United States in October;^[10] English poet and author living in the United States (1922–1925)
• Hugh MacDiarmid (pen name of Christopher Murray Grieve, the name used for this book), Annals of the Five Senses^[10]
• John Masefield:
  • Collected Poems^[10]
  • King Cole, and Other Poems^[10]
• Alice Meynell, Last Poems (posthumous)^[10]
• Herbert Read, Mutations of the Phoenix^[10]
• Edith Sitwell, Bucolic Comedies^[10]
• Oriental Blossoms, London: Heath Cranton; anthology; Indian poetry in English, published in the United Kingdom^[7]
• Osbert Sitwell, Out of the Flame^[10]
• Jean Toomer, Cane
• William Butler Yeats, The Cat and the Moon, including "Leda and the Swan"Ireland and United Kingdom

United States

• Conrad Aiken, The Pilgrimage of Festus^[12]
• Stephen Vincent Benet:
  • King David^[12]
  • The Ballad of William Sycamore, 1790–1880^[12]
• Louise Bogan, Body of This Death^[12]
• E.E. Cummings, Tulips and Chimneys
• Djuna Barnes, A Book, collection of prose and poetry
• Robert Frost, New Hampshire^[12] including "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", "Fire and Ice", "Nothing Gold Can Say"
• D.H. Lawrence, Birds, Beasts and Flowers, including "Snake", published in the United States in October, published in the United Kingdom in November, English poet and author living in the United States (1922–1925)
• Vachel Lindsay, Going-to-the-Sun^[12]
• Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems^[12]
• Lizette Woodworth Reese, Wild Cherry^[12]
• Edward Arlington Robinson, Roman Bartholow^[12]
• George Sterling, Selected Poems^[12]
• Wallace Stevens, Harmonium, including "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird", "The Emperor of Ice-Cream", "Le Monocle de Mon Oncle", "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird", "Peter Quince at the Clavier", "Sunday Morning", "Sea Surface Full of Clouds", and "In the Clear Season of Grapes".^[13] Stevens' first book, it was published by Knopf when the was in middle age (44 years old). Its first edition sold only a hundred copies before being remaindered, suggesting that Mark Van Doren had it right when he wrote in The Nation in 1923, that Stevens's wit "is tentative, perverse, and superfine; and it will never be popular."^[14] Yet by 1960 the cottage industry of Stevens studies was becoming a "multinational conglomerate".^[15] (Revised edition, 1931.^[13])
• Jean Toomer, Cane, a blend of poetry, fiction and dramatic sketches^[16]
• Amos Wilder, Battle Retrospect, Yale University Press (this year's winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets)
• William Carlos Williams:
  • Go Go
  • Spring and All^[12]

Other in English

• Shaw Neilson, Ballad and Lyrical Poems, Sydney, Bookfellow, Australia
• W. B. Yeats, The Cat and the Moon, including "Leda and the Swan", Irish poet published in the United Kingdom

Works published in other languages

France

• Antonin Artaud, Tric-trac du ciel, Paris: Galerie Simon^[17]
• Jean Cocteau, Plain-Chant^[18]
• 1923 * Alphonse Métérié, Le Cahier noir^[18]
• Francis Jammes:
  • La Brebis égarée^[19]
  • Livres des quatrains, published each year from 1922 to 1925^[19]
• Alphonse Métérié, Le Cahier noir^[18]
• Tristan Tzara, pen name of Sami Rosenstock, De nos oiseaux^[20]

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:

Telugu language

• Bahar-e-Gulshan-e-Kashmir, anthology of traditional Kashmiri poetry, mostly the vatsans and ghazals of Mahmood Gami^[8]
• Pendyalu Venkatasubrahmanya Shastri, critical account of the Mahabharata and its interpretation (second edition published in 1933), Telugu-language criticism^[8]
• Penumarti Venkataratnam, Sandhya ragamu, romantic poems; a well-known work in the field of Telugu poetry^[8]

Other in India

• Bharati, Kuyil Pattu-Kannan Pattu-Parata Arupattaru, consists of three works, including Kuyil Pattu, written in 1912, a long narrative poem of 741 lines, written in the traditional Kalivenpa meter, called "a landmark in the field of modern Tamil poetry" by Sisir Kumar Das; Parati Arupattaru, 66-verse autobiographical work^[8]
• Chandra Kanta Agarwala, Binbaragi, 12 important poems about the past glory of Assam, ancient Assamese ballads strongly influenced the poems; Assamese language^[8]
• G. Sankara Kurup, Sahitya Kantukam, lyrical Malayalam poems modelled on those of Vallathol Narayana Menon, with original themes, context and diction; the author later published three other volumes with the same title^[8]
• Godavarish Mishra, Kisalaya, Oriya-language^[8]
• Imam Baksh Nasikh, Divan-i Nasikh, two volumes, Urdu language^[8]
• Jhaverchand Meghani, Veninan Phool (Gujarati-language)^[21]
• Kumaran Asan, Karuna, based on the Buddhist legend of Vasavadatta and Upagupta; the author's last poem and an extremely popular one; celebrates compassion (karuna), Malayalam language^[8]
• Mahananda Sapkota, Manalahari, Nepali language^[8]
• Mani Shankar Ralnaji Bhatt-Kant, Purvalap, a work with a conspicuous romantic mood and classical diction, considered a landmark of Gujarati poetry, according to Sisir Kumar Das; published on the day the poet died^[8]
• Nagardas Amarjee Pandya, Rukmini-Harana, epic Sanskrit mahakavya on a mythological theme^[8]
• Puran Singh, Khulle Maidan, blank verse, Punjabi language^[8]
• Sarasvatibhai Bhide, editor, Abhinavakavyamala, Volume 5, Marathi-language anthology of moden women poets^[8]
• Sukumar Ray, Abol Tabol ("literally, "weird and random"), nonsense verse, Sisir Kumar Das has called it "one of the landmarks in the history of Bengali literature for children"^[8]
• Yatindranath Sengupta, Maricika, known for their innovative rhythm and imagery in Bengali poetry, very different from the followers of Rabindranath Tagore^[8]

Spain

• Juan Ramón Jiménez:
  • Belleza ("Beauty")^[22]
  • Poesía ("Poetry")^[22]
• Pedro Salinas, Presagios ("Presages")^[22]

Other languages

• Jacob Anker-Paulsen, Peters Sejlads og andre Digte for Børn ("Peters Basketball and other Poems for Children"), Denmark
• Otto Gelsted, Reklameskibet ("The Show Boat"), Denmark^[23]
• Sir Muhammad Iqbal, Payam-i-Mashriq (Message from the East), a philosophical poetry book in Persian
• David Vogel, Lifney Hasha'ar Ha'afel ("Before the Dark Gate"), Hebrew language, published in Vienna, the only book of poems published in the author's lifetime^[24]

Awards and honors

• Nobel Prize in Literature (International): William Butler Yeats
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (United States): Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver: A Few Figs from Thistles: Eight Sonnets in American Poetry, 1922. A Miscellany
• Georg Büchner Prize (Germany): Adam Karrillon, German physician, novelist and poet

Births

Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:

• January 15 – Ivor Cutler (died 2006), Scottish poet, songwriter and humorist
• January 16 – Anthony Hecht (died 2004), American poet
• February 2 – James Dickey (died 1997), American poet and novelist
• March 21 – Nizar Qabbani, Syrian diplomat, poet and publisher
• March 27 – Louis Simpson, Jamaican-born American poet who won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
• March 30 – Milton Acorn (died 1986), Canadian poet, writer and playwright nicknamed "The People's Poet"
• April 3 – Daniel Hoffman, American poet, essayist, and academic who served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress — a position now known as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, from 1973 to 1974
• May 19 – Dorothy Hewett (died 2002), Australian poet and playwright
• July 2 – Wisława Szymborska (died 2012), Polish poet, essayist and translator who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996
• July 16 – Mari Evans, African American poet, author, playwright, academic and television producer
• September 22 – Dannie Abse, British poet and writer
• October 24 – Denise Levertov (died 1997), British-born American poet
• November 9 – James Schuyler (died 1991), American poet and a central figure in the New York School
• December 21 – Richard Hugo (born "Richard Hogan") (died 1982), American poet

• Also:
  • Alan Dugan (died 2003), American poet
  • Cola Franzen
  • David Holbrook, English poet, writer and academic
  • Pinkie Gordon Lane, African American^[25]
  • John Logan (poet) (died 1987), American poet
  • Michalis Katsaros, Greek
  • Nanao Sakaki (died 2008), Japanese poet and leading personality of "the Tribe", a counter-cultural group (surname: Sakaki)

Deaths

Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:

• January 9 – Katherine Mansfield, 34, New Zealand poet and prominent Modernist writer of short fiction
• December 15 – Frank Morton, Australian poet and journalist

• Also:
  • Maurice Henry Hewlett (born 1861), English historical novelist, poet and essayist
  • Sukumar Ray (born 1887), Bengali humorous poet, short-story writer and playwright

See also

Poetry portal

• Poetry
• List of poetry awards
• List of years in poetry
• New Objectivity in German literature and art

Notes