Writers in the Soviet Union this year were allowed to publish criticism of Joseph Stalin and were given more freedom generally, although many were severely criticized for doing so. The poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, in the poem, The Heirs of Stalin, wrote that more guards should be placed at Stalin's tomb, "lest Stalin rise again, and with Stalin the past". He also condemns anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union. His poetry readings attracted hundreds and thousands of enthusiastic young people, to the point where police were often summoned to preserve order and disperse the crowds long after midnight. Other young poets also went beyond the previous limits of Soviet censorship: Andrei Voznesensky, Robert Rozhdestvensky, and Bella Akhmadulina (who had divorced Yevtushenko). Alexander Tvardovsky, editor of the literary monthly New World, supported many of the young writers. By the end of the year, the young writers had gained power in the official writers' unions which controlled much of the literary culture of the Soviet Union, and some publications which had attacked them were printing their work.[1]
Derek Walcott, In a Green Night the "most striking" first collection of poetry of 1962, according to Howard Sergeant, editor of Outposts (writing for publication in 1963). Walcott had already gained recognition with his plays.[1]
Anthologies
Al Alvarez, editor, The New Poetry an anthology that provoked controversy with its omissions and inclusions[1]
William Everson (also known as Brother Antoninus, The Hazards of Holiness, Garden City, New York: Doubleday[2]
Ian Hamilton Finlay, The Dancers Inherit the Party, Ventura California an dWorcester, England: Migrant Press* Robert Creeley, For Love: Poems 1950-1960, New York: Scribner's[2]British poet
Robert Frost, In the Clearing, his first collection of new poems in 15 years[1]
Paul Goodman, The Lordly Hudson: Collected Poems, New York: Macmillan[2]
Stéphane Mallarmé, Pour un tombeau d'Anatole, an abandoned and previously unpublished work, consisting of notes and drafts of an elegy the poet expected to write on his dead son (posthumous); edited by J. P. Richard[1]
Anonymous author from the Soviet Union, Zion Halo Tishali, poems originally written in Russian and clandestinely sent to Israel, edited and translated by A. Shlonsky and M. Sharett[1]
J. Lichtenbaum, Shiratenu ("Our Poetry"), a two-volume anthology of Hebrew poetry from the end of the eighteenth century[1]
J. J. Schwartz, Kentucky, the only volume of Hebrew poetry published in the United States, according to The Britannica Book of the Year 1963 (covering events of 1962)[1]
Encyclopedia
top
