Among the many books of poetry published this year, Robert Lowell's For the Union Dead is greeted with particular acclaim. The book was received with "general jubilation" from critics, according to Raymond Walters Jr., associate editor of the New York Times Book Review. "These verses [...] convinced many observers that its author was now the pre-eminent U.S. poet."[1]
The publication in the United Kingdom of The Complete Poems of D. H. Lawrence in two volumes is "a major publishing event of 1964".[1]
A surprise best-seller in the United Kingdom was John Lennon's In His Own Write, a compendium of nonsense poems, sketches and drawings by one of the Beatles.[1]
The "Shakespeare Quartercentenary", the 400th anniversary of the birth of William Shakespeare, is celebrated in lecture series, exhibitions, dramatic and musical programs and other events as well as special publications (Shakespeare issues and supplements), reprinting of standard works on the playwright and poet, and even commemorative postage stamps. The American Association of Advertising Agencies even suggests that Shakespeare quotations should be used in ads. Celebrations of various sorts occur in the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and elsewhere.[1]
The 75th birthday of Anna Akhmatova, who was severely persecuted during the Stalin era, was celebrated with special observances and the publication of new collections of her verse.[1]
Russian poet Joseph Brodsky is convicted of "parisitism" in a Soviet court, which sends him into exile near the Arctic Circle.
David Wevill, Birth of a Shark, a first collection by a native of Canada[1]
Judith Wright, Five Senses selected poems by this Australian poet[1]
Criticism, scholarship, and biography in the United Kingdom
Poetry of the Thirties, a Penguin Books anthology; including the last published appearance during the lifetime of W. H. Auden of his, "September 1, 1939", a poem which he was famous for, but which he hated; the poem appeared in the edition with a note about this and four other early poems: "Mr. W. H. Auden considers these five poems to be trash which he is ashamed to have written."
Gruppo '63 (published this spring), an anthology of poems, critical essays, and passages from plays and novels by writers who had rebelled in recent years against standard conventions in literature.[1]
Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, Poesía argentina (sic), including selections from 10 Argentinian poets, most born in the 1920s or later[1]
Oscar Echeverri Mejía and Alfonso Bonilla-Naar, editors, 21 años de poesía colombiana (sic), with poems from the more prominent Colombian poets in the two decades from 1942 to 1963[1]
Criticism, scholarship, and biography in Latin America
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