Events

• Robert Creeley founds and edits the Black Mountain Review^[1]
• Jack Kerouac reads Dwight Goddard's A Buddhist Bible, which will influence him greatly.
• January 25 — Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood is broadcast on radio

Works published

• W. H. Auden, The Shield of Achilles
• Sir John Betjeman, A Few Late Chrysanthemums
• E.E. Cummings, Poems, 1923-1954
• Babette Deutsch, Animal, Vegetable, Mineral
• Haim Gouri, Shirei Hotam ("Poems of the Seal"), Israeli writing in Hebrew^[2]
• Thom Gunn, Fighting Terms, Fantasy Press
• John Heath-Stubbs, A Charm Against the Toothace
• Philip Larkin, The Less Deceived
• Frank Prince, Soldiers Bathing and Other Poems
• Jon Silkin, The Peaceable Kingdom, including "Death of a Son (who died in a mental hospital aged one)"
• Keith Sinclair, Strangers or Beasts: Poems, New Zealand
• Wis?awa Szymborska: Pytania zadawane sobie ("Questioning Yourself"), Poland
• Dylan Thomas, Quite Early One Morning, New Directions Publishers
• William Carlos Williams, The Desert Music and Other Poems

Criticism, scholarship and biography

• P. Cruttwell, The Shakespearean Moment, criticism, United Kingdom^[3]
• G. Hartmann, The Unmediated Vision, criticism, United Kingdom^[3]
• Hugh Kenner, Wyndham Lewis: A Critical Guidebook, criticism, United States
• W. C. Williams, Selected Essays, criticism, United States^[4]
• W. K. Wimsatt Jr., The Verbal Icon, criticism, United Kingdom^[3]

Awards and honors

• National Book Award for Poetry: Conrad Aiken, Collected Poems
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Theodore Roethke: The Waking
• King's Gold Medal for Poetry: Ralph Hodgson
• Bollingen Prize: W. H. Auden
• Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets: Louise Townsend Nicholl and Oliver St. John Gogarty

Births

• April 17 — Erin Mouré, Canadian poet
• July 31 — Kim Addonizio, American poet and novelist
• August 15 — Mary Jo Salter, American poet
• October 15 — Peter Bakowski, Australian poet
• December 5 — Lynda Hull, American poet
• December 20 — Sandra Cisneros, American poet and author
• date not known:
  • Catherine Anderson
  • Robert Boates
  • Lorna Dee Cervantes
  • Janet Charman, New Zealand
  • Cornelius Eady, African American poet
  • Sotiris Kakisis, Greek poet
  • Jan Heller Levi
  • Thylias Moss, African American poet, writer, and playwright
  • Luis J. Rodriguez, American poet, novelist, journalist, critic, and columnist
  • Stephen Sartarelli
  • Vijay Seshadri

Deaths

• March 28 — Francis Brett Young, 73, English novelist and poet
• January 1 — Leonard Bacon (poet), 66
• date not known — Maxwell Bodenheim, 62, American poet and novelist known as the "King of Greenwich Village Bohemians"

See also

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

Notes