1944 in poetry

List of years in poetry (table)
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In literature 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947
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Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).

Events

• June 1 & June 5 – The first and (modified) second lines respectively of Paul Verlaine's 1866 poem Chanson d'automne (Les sanglots longs des violons de l'automne / Bercent mon cœur d'une langueur monotone.) are broadcast by the Allies over BBC Radio Londres among coded messages to the French Resistance to prepare for the D-Day landings (second broadcast at 22:15 local time).[1][2] In the ensuing Invasion of Normandy English soldier-poet Keith Douglas is killed; Vernon Scannell (as John Bain) experiences the incident that gives rise to the poem "Walking Wounded" (1965) and is wounded; and, during lulls in the fighting, Dennis B. Wilson is writing the poem that will be published as Elegy of a Common Soldier in 2012.[3]
• October 2 – Dylan Thomas is best man at the wedding of his friend and fellow Welsh poet Vernon Watkins in London - but fails to turn up.

Works published in English

Listed by nation where the work was first published and again by the poet's native land, if different; substantially revised works listed separately:

Canadian poet E. J. Pratt in 1944

Canada

• E. K. Brown, On Canadian Poetry, revised edition (scholarship), Canada[4]
• Ralph Gustafson, editor, Canadian Accent, anthology[5]
• A. M. Klein:
  • The Hitleriad[5]
  • Poems[5]
• Dorothy Livesay, Day and Night. Toronto: Ryerson.[6] Governor General's Award 1944.
• E. J. Pratt, Collected Poems of E. J. Pratt, Toronto: Macmillan.[7]
• Ronald Hambleton, editor Unit of five: Louis Dudek, Ronald Hambleton, P. K. Page, Raymond Souster, James Wreford, anthology, Toronto: Ryerson Press, Canada[8]

India, in English

• Harindranath Chattopadhyay:
  • Blood of Stones ( Poetry in English ), including "On the Pavement of Calcutta", a realistic description of suffering in the Bengal famine of 1943;[9] Bombay: Padma Publications[10]
  • Lyrics ( Poetry in English ), Bombay: Padma Publications[10]
• Nolini Kanta Gupta, To the Height ( Poetry in English ),[11]
• Humayun Kabir, Mahatma and Other Poems( Poetry in English ); except for the title poem "Mahatama", inspired by the Quit India Movement, and "Rabindranath Tagore", the other poems are reprinted from the author's Poems 1932[9]
• Fredoon Kabraji, A Minor Georgian's Swan Song ( Poetry in English ), Publisher: Basil Blackwell, Indian poet published in the United Kingdom[12]
• P. R. Kaikini, Look On Undaunted ( Poetry in English ), Bombay[13]
• H. D. Sethna, Struggling Heights ( Poetry in English ), Bombay: Karnatak Publishing House[13]
• Subho Tagore:
  • Flames of Passion ( Poetry in English ), love poems in verse and in the form of prose poems; Calcutta: Susil Gupta Ltd.[13]
  • Rubble, translated by Nilima Devi into English from the original Bengali; Calcutta: The Futurist Publishing House[13]

United Kingdom

• Drummond Allison, The Yellow Night: Poems 1940-41-42-43, posthumous
• W. H. Auden, For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio, English poet living and publishing in the United States
• George Barker, Eros in Dogma[14]
• Laurence Binyon, The Burning of the Leaves, and Other Poems[14]
• John Betjeman, New Bats in Old Belfries
• Laurence Binyon, The Burning of the Leaves, and Other Poems[14]
• Edmund Blunden, Shells by a Stream[14]
• Alex Comfort, Elegies[14]
• Crown and Sickle poetry anthology in Britain, featuring poets in the New Apocalyptics movement
• Walter De la Mare, Collected Rhymes and Verses
• Patric Dickinson, The Seven Days of Jericho[14]
• T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets, contains "Burnt Norton" (first published 1936 and again 1941), "East Coker" (1940), "The Dry Salvages" (1941), "Little Gidding" (1942)[14]
• Roy Fuller, A Lost Season[14]
• W. S. Graham, The Seven Journeys[14]
• Robert Greacen, Northern Harvest and One Recent Evening, Northern Ireland poet
• J. F. Hendry, and Henry Treece, editors, The Crown and Sickle, anthology[14]
• Laurie Lee, The Sun My Monument[14]
• John Lehmann, The Sphere of Glass, and Other Poems[14]
• Louis MacNeice, Springboard[14]
• R. P. L. Mogg, For This Alone, and Other Poems
• Mervyn Peake, Rhymes Without Reason[14]
• John Pudney, Almanack of Hope[14]
• Herbert Read, A World Within a War[14]
• Lynette Roberts, Poems
• E. J. Scovell, Shadows of Chrysanthemums, and Other Poems[14]
• William Soutar, The Expectant Silence[14]
• A. P. Wavell (comp.), Other Men's Flowers, anthology
• Charles Williams, The Region of the Summer Stars[14]

United States

• Franklin P. Adams, Nods and Becks[15]
• Conrad Aiken, The Soldier[15]
• W. H. Auden, For the Time Being[15]
• E. E. Cummings, 1 X 1[15]
• Babette Deutsch, Take Them, Stranger[15]
• Hilda Doolittle, writing under the pen name "H.D.", The Walls Do Not Fall,[15] first part of Trilogy (1944–46) on the blitz in war-time London
• Stanley J. Kunitz, Passport to the War[15]
• Robert Lowell, Land of Unlikeness, Cummington, Massachusetts: Cummington Press[16]
• William Meredith, Love Letter from an Impossible Land[15]
• Marianne Moore, Nevertheless[15]
• Kenneth Rexroth, The Phoenix and the Tortoise[15]
• Muriel Rukeyser, Beast in View
• Karl Shapiro, V-Letter and Other Poems[15]
• Jesse Stuart, Album of Destiny[15]
• Mark Van Doren, Seven Sleepers[15]
• Louise Varèse, translator, Eloges and Other Poems, translated from the original French of Saint-John Perse; introduction by Archibald MacLeish, New York: Norton[17]
• Robert Penn Warren, Selected Poems, 1923—1943[15]
• William Carlos Williams:
  • Collected Later Poems[18]
  • The Wedge

Other in English

• James K. Baxter, Beyond the Palisade, his first volume of poetry, New Zealand
• Seaforth Mackenzie, The Moonlit Doorway, Sydney: Angus and Robertson; Australia
• Kenneth Slessor, One Hundred Poems, 1919-1939, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, Australia

Works published in other languages

Listed by nation where the work was first published and again by the poet's native land, if different; substantially revised works listed separately:

France

• Jean Cassou, Trente-trois sonnets composes au secret[19]
• Robert Desnos, Contrée[20]
• Paul Éluard, Au Rendez-vous allemand[20]
• Pierre Jean Jouve, Pour les Ombres Lausanne, Switzerland: Cahiers de Poésie French poet published in Switzerland[21]
• Alphonse Métérié, Les Cantiques du Frère Michel[19]
• Saint-John Perse, French poet published in his native language while in exile in Argentina:
  • Pluies, Buenos Aires: Les Editions Lettres Françaises (republished in Exil, suivi de Poème à l'étrangère; Pluies; Neiges Paris: Gallimard 1945)[17]
  • Quatre poèmes, 1941-1944, Buenos Aires: Les Editions Lettres Françaises (republished as Exil, suivi de Poème à l'étrangère; Pluies; Neiges Paris: Gallimard 1945)[17]

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:

Gujarati

• Badarayan, Kedi[22]
• Umashankar Joshi, Prachina, a "dialogue-poem"[22]

Hindi

• Anchala Rameshvar Shukla, Lal Cunar, lyrics celebrating love, youth and revolt[9]
• Girija Kumar Mathur, Manjir, many of these poems have themes of nature and intense love[9]
• Rangeya Raghav, Ajeya Khandhar, pragativadi-movement poetry about the battle of Stalingrad, depicted to illustrate the human struggle for freedom[9]
• Shyam Narayan Pandey, Jauhar, depicting the self-sacrifice of Padmini, queen of Chittor, written in a folk style[9]

Other Indian languages

• A. N. Krishna Rao, Pragati Sila Sahitya, 15 essays in Kannada on the Pragatisila Caluvali (progressive movement) in Indian literature[9]
• Bhimaraj Bhambiru, also known as "Mangal"; Mumgha Moti, written in doha form, the poems are addressed to an individual Mangala; Rajasthani-language[9]
• Joseph Mundasseri, written in Malayalam-language:
  • Manadandam, criticism about Indian classical literature, particularly Kalidasa[9]
  • Mattoli, a comparison of three major works of poetry: Kumaran Asan's Karuna, Vallathol's Magdalana Mariyam and Ulloor's Pingala[9]
• K. V. Puttappa, also known as "Kuvempu", Kogile Mattu Soviet Russia, verses with a focus on the common man, which was pioneering for Kannada poetry of the time; a recurring theme in the poems is rejection of institutionalized religion[9]
• Kshama Rao, Miralahari, Khanda Kavya poetry on Meera, the medieval Indian saint-poet; Sanskrit-language[9]
• Mahjoor, Kalam-e-Mahjoor "No. 8", Kashmiri-language ghazals and vatsan's[9]
• Mohammad Jamil Ahmad, Tazkirah-yi Sha'irat-i Urdu, literary criticism of Urdu-language women poets, with biographical information and selections from their poems[9]
• Mohammad Mujib, Insha, adab aur adib, Urdu essays in literary criticism[9]
• Prabhjot Kaur, Palkan Ohle, love poems; Punjabi-language[9]
• Shrikrishna Powale, Agniparag; Marathi-language[9]
• Va. Ramaswamy Ayyangar, Makakavi Paratiyar, Tamil biography of the Tamil poet Bharati[9]

Spanish language

• Delmira Agustini, Poesías, posthumously published (died 1914), prologue by Luisa Luisi (Montevideo, Claudio García & Co., Uruguay[23]
• Vicente Aleixandre, Sombra del paraíso ("Shadows of Paradise"); Spain[24]
• César Moro, pen name of César Quíspez Asín, Lettre d'amour, Peru[25]
• Stella Sierra, Canciones de mar y luna ("Songs of Sea and Moon"), Panama

Other languages

• Nathan Alterman, Plague Poems, Israel
• Nizar Qabbani, The Brunette Told Me, Syrian poet writing in Arabic
• Giorgos Seferis, Ημερολόγιο Καταστρώματος ΙΙ ("Deck Diary II"), Greece

Awards and honors

• Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (later the post would be called "Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress"): Robert Penn Warren appointed this year. He would serve until 1945.
• Governor General's Award, poetry or drama: Day and Night, Dorothy Livesay (Canada) [26]

Births

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

• February 3 – Sandra Alcosser, American
• February 9 – Alice Walker, African-American novelist, poet, writer and feminist
• March 9 – Ndoc Gjetja (died 2010), Albanian poet and magazine editor[27]
• March 21 – Pedro Pietri (died 2004), Puerto Rican and Nuyorican poet and playwright, co-founder of Nuyorican Poets Cafe
• March 25 – Jack Mapanje, Malawian poet and writer
• April 18 – Kathy Acker (died 1997), American postmodernist experimental novelist and punk poet
• July 18 – Wayne Brown (died 2009), Caribbean (Trinidadian-born)
• July 24 – Jalal Mansur Nuriddin (died 2018), American rap poet and musician
• August 4 – Penn Kemp, Canadian poet, novelist, playwright and sound poet
• August 22 – Tom Leonard (died 2018), Scottish
• August 24 - Paulo Leminski (died 1989), Brazilian poet and translator
• August 25
  • Margaret Gibson (died 1999), African-American
  • Sherley Anne Williams, African-American
• August 31 – Lorenzo Thomas, American
• September 24 – Eavan Boland (died 2020), Irish
• September 25 – bpNichol, Canadian
• October 10 – Linda Rogers, Canadian poet and children's writer
• October 12 – Lewis MacAdams, American poet, journalist and activist, founder of Friends of The Los Angeles River (FoLAR) in 1985
• October 16 – Paul Durcan, Irish
• November 24 – Jules Deelder (died 2019), Dutch
• November 25 – Kathryn Stripling Byer (died 2017), American poet, teacher; North Carolina Poet Laureate, 2005–2009
• December 3 – Craig Raine, English poet and critic
• December 10 – Carol Rumens, English poet, writer, literary editor and academic
• December 18 – Michael Davidson, American
• Also:
  • David Constantine, English poet, translator, editor and academic
  • Susan Ioannou, Canadian
  • Mary Kinzie, American
  • Patrick O'Connell (died 2005), Canadian
  • Jergen Theobaldy, German[28]
  • Tim Thorne (died 2021), Tasmanian

Deaths

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

• January 7 – Napoleon Lapathiotis (born 1888), Greek poet
• January 19 – Frederick George Scott (born 1861), Canadian poet
• February 9 – Agnes Mary Frances Duclaux (born 1857), English-born poet and biographer
• February 12 – Olive Custance, Lady Alfred Douglas (born 1874), English poet
• February 23 – Augusta Peaux (born 1859), Dutch poet
• March 5 – Alun Lewis (born 1915), Anglo-Welsh school poet and war poet, died on active service in Burma
• March 28 – Stephen Leacock (born 1869), Canadian writer and economist
• April 4 – John Peale Bishop (born 1892), American poet and man of letters
• May 22 – William Ellery Leonard (born 1876), American poet and academic
• June 5 – (Doris) Capel Boake (born 1889), Australian writer
• June 9 – Keith Douglas (born 1920), English war poet died in World War II in the D-Day invasion of Normandy, killed by enemy mortar fire while his regiment is advancing from Bayeux and buried at the war cemetery at Tilly-sur-Seuilles
• June – Joseph Campbell (born 1879), Irish poet and lyricist
• July 3 – A. H. Reginald Buller (born 1874), British/Canadian mycologist mainly known as a researcher of fungi and wheat rust who also wrote limericks, some of which were published in Punch
• July 18 – Thomas Sturge Moore (born 1870), English poet, author and artist
• August 25 – Musa Cälil (born 1905), Soviet Tatar poet and resistance fighter, executed in a Nazi German prison
• September 26 – Eunice Tietjens (born 1884), American poet, novelist, journalist, children's author, lecturer and editor
• September 30 – Baroness Gertrud von Puttkamer, writing as Marie-Madeleine (born 1881), German homoerotic poet, dies in a Nazi sanatorium
• October 2 or 3 – Benjamin Fondane (born 1898), Romanian-French Symbolist poet, critic and existentialist philosopher, gassed in Auschwitz concentration camp
• November 22 – Sadakichi Hartmann (born 1867), American art critic and poet
• November 24 – Jun Tsuji 辻 潤 (born 1884), Japanese author, poet, essayist, translator, musician and bohemian
• December 17 – Robert Nichols (born 1893), English war poet and dramatist
• Also:
  • Olivia Ward Bush-Banks (born 1869), African and Native American poet and journalist
  • K. V. Simon (born 1883), Indian, Malayalam-language poet[29]
  • David Vogel (born 1891), Hebrew poet, gassed in Auschwitz concentration camp

See also

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

Notes

1. Foot, M. R. D. (1999). SOE: An Outline History of the Special Operations Executive 1940–46. London: Pimlico. p. 143. ISBN 0-7126-6585-4.
2. Stourton, Edward (2017). Auntie's War: the BBC during the Second World War. London: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-857-52332-7.
3. Kirby, Terry (2010-10-08). "The strange and secretive life of Alexander Wilson". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 2022-05-01. Retrieved 2018-12-12.
4. Preminger, Alex and T.V.F. Brogan, et al., editors, The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, 1993, Princeton University Press and MJF Books, "Canadian Poetry" article, English "History and Criticism" section, p 164
5. Gustafson, Ralph, The Penguin Book of Canadian Verse, revised edition, 1967, Baltimore, Maryland: Penguin Books
6. "Dorothy Livesay (1909-1996): Works" Archived 2012-09-05 at the Wayback Machine, Canadian Women Poets, Brock University. Web, Mar. 18, 2011.
7. "Bibliography," Selected Poems of E. J. Pratt, Peter Buitenhuis ed., Toronto: Macmillan, 1968, 207-208.
8. Web page titled "Canadian Poets / P.K. Page, Published Works" Archived 2009-04-18 at the Wayback Machine, at the University of Toronto Library website, retrieved January 3, 2009
9. Das, Sisir Kumar, "A Chronology of Literary Events / 1911–1956", in Das, Sisir Kumar and various, History of Indian Literature: 1911-1956: struggle for freedom: triumph and tragedy, Volume 2, 1995, published by Sahitya Akademi, ISBN 978-81-7201-798-9, retrieved via Google Books on December 23, 2008
10. Vinayak Krishna Gokak, The Golden Treasury Of Indo-Anglian Poetry (1828-1965), p 316, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi (1970, first edition; 2006 reprint), ISBN 81-260-1196-3, retrieved August 6, 2010
11. Naik, M. K., Perspectives on Indian poetry in English, p. 230, (published by Abhinav Publications, 1984, ISBN 0-391-03286-0, ISBN 978-0-391-03286-6), retrieved via Google Books, June 12, 2009
12. Lal, P., Modern Indian Poetry in English: An Anthology & a Credo, p. 238, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, second edition, 1971 (however, on page 597 an "editor's note" states contents "on the following pages are a supplement to the first edition" and is dated "1972")
13. Vinayak Krishna Gokak, The Golden Treasury Of Indo-Anglian Poetry (1828-1965), p 322, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi (1970, first edition; 2006 reprint), ISBN 81-260-1196-3, retrieved August 6, 2010
14. Cox, Michael, ed. (2004). The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-860634-6.
15. Ludwig, Richard M., and Clifford A. Nault, Jr., Annals of American Literature: 1602–1983, 1986, New York: Oxford University Press ("If the title page is one year later than the copyright date, we used the latter since publishers frequently postdate books published near the end of the calendar year." — from the Preface, p vi)
16. M. L. Rosenthal, The New Poets: American and British Poetry Since World War II, New York: Oxford University Press, 1967, "Selected Bibliography: Individual Volumes by Poets Discussed", pp 334-340
17. Web page titled "Saint-John Perse: The Nobel Prize in Literature 1960: Bibliography"at the Nobel Prize Website, retrieved July 20, 2009. 2009-07-24.
18. Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair, editors, The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, W. W. Norton & Company, 1973, ISBN 0-393-09357-3
19. Bree, Germaine, Twentieth-Century French Literature, translated by Louise Guiney, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1983
20. Auster, Paul, editor, The Random House Book of Twentieth-Century French Poetry: with Translations by American and British Poets, New York: Random House, 1982 ISBN 0-394-52197-8
21. Cady, Andrea, Measuring the visible: the verse and prose of Philippe Jaccottet, p 32, Editions Rodopi, 1992, retrieved via Google Books on August 20, 2009
22. Mohan, Sarala Jag, Chapter 4: "Twentieth-Century Gujarati Literature" (Google books link), in Natarajan, Nalini, and Emanuel Sampath Nelson, editors, Handbook of Twentieth-century Literatures of India, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996, ISBN 978-0-313-28778-7, retrieved December 10, 2008
23. Web page titled "Delmira Agustini" Archived 2011-09-02 at the Wayback Machine at the Universitat Jaume's "Modernismo en España e Hispanoamérica" website, retrieved September 1, 2011
24. Debicki, Andrew P., Spanish Poetry of the Twentieth Century: Modernity and Beyond, p 43, University Press of Kentucky, 1995, ISBN 978-0-8131-0835-3, retrieved via Google Books, November 21, 2009
25. Fitts, Dudley, editor, Anthology of Contemporary Latin-American Poetry/Antología de la Poesía Americana Contemporánea Norfolk, Conn., New Directions, (also London: The Falcoln Press, but this edition was "Printed in U.S.A.), 1947, p 621
26. "Cumulative List of Winners of the Governor General's Literary Awards" Archived 2011-05-14 at the Wayback Machine, Canada Council. Web, Feb. 10, 2011.
27. "Ndoc Gjetja, hera e fundit në bibliotekën publike", June 8, 2010, Telegrafi of Pristina (Google translation of Web page), retrieved June 10, 2010.
28. Hofmann, Michael, ed. (2006). Twentieth-Century German Poetry: An Anthology. Macmillan/Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
29. Paniker, Ayyappa (1992). "Modern Malayalam Literature". In George, K. M. (ed.). Modern Indian Literature, an Anthology. Sahitya Akademi. p. 231–255. ISBN 9788172013240. Retrieved 2009-01-10.