1999 in poetry

 

	This is part of the List of years in poetry
Years in poetry:	1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Years in literature:	1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Decades in poetry:	1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s
Centuries in poetry:	19th century 20th century 21st century
Centuries:	19th century · 20th century · 21st century
Decades:	1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s
Years:	1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Events

• July 1 — Scotland's Parliament opened with the singing of Robert Burns' "A Man's a Man For A'That," instead of "God Save The Queen"
• The Robert Fitzgerald Prosody Award is established at the Fifth Annual West Chester University Poetry Conference. The award is given to scholars who have made a lasting contribution to the art and science of versification. Derek Attridge was the first winner.
• Andrew Motion becomes Poet Laureate of England
• Carl Rakosi's 99th birthday celebrated at the Kelly Writers House with a live audiocast
• A new grave slab is installed at the Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh over the final resting place of William Topaz McGonagall (1825–1904), comically renowned as the worst poet in the English language; the slab is inscribed:

William McGonagall

Poet and Tragedian

"I am your gracious Majesty

ever faithful to Thee,

William McGonagall, the Poor Poet,

That lives in Dundee."

Works published in English

Australia

• Robert Adamson Black Water: Approaching Zukofsky
• Les Murray:
  • Fredy Neptune, verse novel, winner of the 2005 Premio Mondello (in Italy)^[1]
  • New Selected Poems, Duffy & Snellgrove^[1]
  • Conscious and Verbal, Carcanet, Duffy & Snellgrove^[1]

Canada

• Ken Babstock, Mean, his first book of poetry, winner of the Atlantic Poetry Prize and the Milton Acorn People’s Poet Award (Canada)^[2]
• George Elliott Clarke, Gold Indigoes. Durham: Carolina Wren, ISBN 0-932112-40-4
• Tim Lilburn, To the River, winner of the Saskatchewan Book Award for Book of the Year

New Zealand

• Alistair Campbell, Gallipoli & Other Poems, Wellington: Wai-te-ata Press
• Michele Leggott, As far as I can see, Auckland: Auckland University Press, New Zealand
• Robin Hyde, The book of Nadath, introduction and notes by Michele Leggott; Auckland: Auckland University Press, New Zealand, posthumous
• Bill Manhire, What to Call Your Child, New Zealand

United Kingdom

• Ciarán Carson: The Ballad of HMS Belfast: A Compendium of Belfast Poems, Picador
• Seamus Heaney:
  • The Light of the Leaves, Bonnefant Press
  • Translator: Beowulf, Faber & Faber
  • Translator: Diary of One Who Vanished, a song cycle by Leoš Janáček of poems by Ozef Kalda, Faber & Faber
• John Heath-Stubbs, The Sound of Light
• Andrew Johnston (poet), The Open Window, Arc Publications, a New Zealand poet living in Paris, France
• Derek Mahon, Collected Poems. Gallery Press
• Peter Redgrove, Selected Poems
• Marina Tsvetayeva, The Selected Poems of Marina Tsvetayeva, translated by Elaine Feinstein, fifth edition, with new poems and a new introduction, Oxford University Press/Carcanet
• Hugo Williams, Billy's Rain, Faber and Faber

Anthologies in the United Kingdom

• Richard Caddel and Peter Quartermain, editors, Other: British and Irish Poetry since 1970, an anthology of poetry outside The Movement (essentially the mainstream) of English and Irish poetry (Wesleyan University Press)
• Elaine Feinstein, editor, After Pushkin, "versions by contemporary poets", published by the Folio Society and Carcanet
• Michael Schmidt, The Harvill Book of Twentieth-Century Poetry in English

United States

• Joseph Brodsky: Discovery, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux^[3] Russian-American
• Robert Dassanowsky, Telegrams from the Metropole. Selected Poems 1980-1998 ISBN 13 978-3-901993-02-2; ISBN 103-901993-02-9
• Rita Dove, On the Bus with Rosa Parks (Norton); a New York Times "notable book of the year"
• Geoffrey Hill, The Triumph of Love (Houghton Mifflin); a New York Times "notable book of the year"
• William Logan, Night Battle
• Glyn Maxwell, The Breakage, (Houghton Mifflin); a New York Times "notable book of the year"
• W.S. Merwin, The River Sound: Poems (Knopf); a New York Times "notable book of the year"
• Eugenio Montale, Collected Poems: 1920-1954 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux); a New York Times "notable book of the year"; translatef from Italian
• Mary Oliver, Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems
• Michael Palmer, The Danish Notebook (Avec Books); memoir/poetic essay
• Carl Rakosi, The Old Poet's Tale
• Kenneth Rexroth, Swords That Shall Not Strike: Poems of Protest and Rebellion (Glad Day; posthumous}
• Charles Simic, Jackstraws: Poems (Harcourt Brace); a New York Times "notable book of the year"
• Melvin B. Tolson, Harlem Gallery: And Other Poems (University Press of Virginia); a New York Times "notable book of the year"
• Rosmarie Waldrop, Reluctant Gravities (New Directions)

Criticism, scholarship and biography in the United States

• Charles Bernstein, A Poetics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press)

Poets in The Best American Poetry 1999

Poems from these 75 poets are in The Best American Poetry 1999, edited by David Lehman, guest editor, Robert Bly:

Dick Allen John Balaban Coleman Barks George Bilgere Elizabeth Bishop Chana Bloch Philip Booth John Brehm Hayden Carruth Lucille Clifton Billy Collins Robert Creeley Lydia Davis Debra Kang Dean Chard deNiord

Russell Edson Lawrence Ferlinghetti Dan Gerber Louise Glück Ray Gonzalez John Haines Donald Hall Jennifer Michael Hecht Bob Hicok Jane Hirshfield Tony Hoagland John Hollander Amy Holman David Ignatow Gray Jacobik

Josephine Jacobsen Louis Jenkins Mary Karr X. J. Kennedy Galway Kinnell Carolyn Kizer Ron Koertge Yusef Komunyakaa William Kulik James Laughlin Dorianne Laux Li-Young Lee Denise Levertov Philip Levine David Mamet

Gigi Marks William Matthews Wesley McNair Czeslaw Milosz Joan Murray Sharon Olds Mary Oliver Franco Pagnucci Molly Peacock Alberto Ríos David Ray Adrienne Rich Kay Ryan Sonia Sanchez Revan Schendler

Myra Shapiro Charles Simic Louis Simpson Thomas R. Smith Marcia Southwick William Stafford Peggy Steele Ruth Stone Larissa Szporluk Diane Thiel David Wagoner Richard Wilbur C.K. Williams Charles Wright Timothy Young

Works published in other languages

Spain

• Matilde Camus:
  • Clamor del pensamiento ("Clamour of thought")
  • Cancionero multicolor ("Multicolour collection of verses")
  • La estrellita Giroldina ("Giroldina the star")

Other languages

• Aharon Shabtai, Politiqa (Hebrew: "Politics")

Awards and honors

• Nobel prize: Günter Grass

Australia

• C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Gig Ryan, Pure and Applied
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Lee Cataldi, Race Against Time
• Miles Franklin Award: Murray Bail, Eucalyptus

Canada

• Gerald Lampert Award
• Archibald Lampman Award
• Atlantic Poetry Prize
• See 1999 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Pat Lowther Award
• Prix Alain-Grandbois
• Shaunt Basmajian Chapbook Award

United Kingdom

• Cholmondeley Award: Vicki Feaver, Geoffrey Hill, Elma Mitchell, Sheenagh Pugh
• Eric Gregory Award: Ross Cogan, Matthew Hollis, Helen Ivory, Andrew Pidoux, Owen Sheers, Dan Wyke
• Forward Poetry Prize Best Collection: Jo Shapcott, My Life Asleep (Oxford University Press)
• Forward Poetry Prize Best First Collection: Nick Drake, The Man in the White Suit (Bloodaxe)
• Poet Laureate of Great Britain: Andrew Motion appointed
• Samuel Johnson Prize: Antony Beevor, Stalingrad
• T. S. Eliot Prize (United Kingdom and Ireland): Hugo Williams, Billy's Rain
• Whitbread Best Book Award: Seamus Heaney, Beowulf

United States

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Daisy Fried, She Didn't Mean To Do It
• Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: George Garrett
• Arthur Rense Prize awarded to James McMichael by the American Academy of Arts and Letters
• Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: J.D. McClatchy, "Tattoos"
• Bollingen Prize: Robert Creeley
• Frost Medal: Barbara Guest
• National Book Award for poetry: Ai, Vice: New & Selected Poems
• Special Bicentential Consultants in Poetry to the Library of Congress: Rita Dove, Louise Glück, and W.S. Merwin appointed
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Mark Strand, Blizzard of One
• Robert Fitzgerald Prosody Award: Derek Attridge
• Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize: Maxine Kumin
• Wallace Stevens Award: Jackson Mac Low
• William Carlos Williams Award: B.H. Fairchild, The Art of the Lathe (Working Classics), Judge: Garrett Hongo
• Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets: Gwendolyn Brooks

Deaths

• January 13 — John Frederick Nims, American poet
• February 22 - William Bronk, 81, American poet
• May 10 - Shel Silverstein, 68, children's poet
• August 15 — Patricia Beer, 79, British poet and critic
• September 8 — Moondog, 83, street poet (aka Louis T. Hardin)
• October 9 — João Cabral de Melo Neto, 79, Brazilian poet and diplomat
• December 10 — Edward Dorn, 70, American poet associated with the Black Mountain poets
• date not known:
  • December — Ida Affleck Graves, 97
  • Felipe Alfau (born 1902), Spanish-American poet, translator and author

See also

• Poetry
• List of years in poetry
• List of poetry awards

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c} [1]Les Murray Web page at The Poetry Archive Web site, accessed October 15, 2007
2. ^ [2]Web page titled "Griffin Poetry Prize/ Canadian Shortlist" at the Griffen Poetry Award Web site, accessed October 6, 2007
3. ^ [3] Web page titled "Joseph Brodsky / Nobel Prize in Literature 1987 / Bibliography" at the "Official Web Site of the Nobel Foundation", accessed October 18, 2007

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