1943 in poetry

Events

• September 12 - Abraham Sutzkever, a Polish Jew writing poetry in Yiddish, escapes the Vilna Ghetto with his wife and hides in the forests. Sutzkever and fellow Yiddish poet Shmerke Kaczerginsky, fight against the Nazis as partisans. During the Nazi era, Sutzkever writes more than eighty poems, whose manuscripts he manages to save for postwar publication.
• December - English poet Philip Larkin, having graduated from the University of Oxford, obtains his first post as a librarian.
• Babi Yar in poetry: poems are written about the 1941 Babi Yar massacres by Mykola Bazhan of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ; Sava Holovanivskyi and Kievan poet Olga Anstei . She defects this year from the Soviet Union to the West with her husband
• Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels closes theaters and publishers in Germany.
• Ezra Pound, still in Italy, is indicted for treason by the United States Attorney General.
• Canadian poet, critic and editor John Sutherland publishes a review of Patrick Anderson's poetry in his magazine First Statement which suggests homoerotic themes in his writing, and accuses Anderson of "some sexual experience of a kind not normal"; although Anderson would in fact come out as gay later in life, he is married at this time to Peggy Doernbach and threatens to sue. Sutherland prints a retraction in the following issue of his magazine.
• Ottawa native Elizabeth Smart moves permanently to England.
• Focus magazine founded in Jamaica.
• Poetry Scotland magazine founded in Glasgow by Maurice Lindsay.
• Publication of a new comprehensive edition of Friedrich Hölderlin's complete works, begins.

  Works published in English

Canada">Canadian poetry">Canada

• Archibald Lampman, At The Long Sault, edited by Duncan Campbell Scott and E.K. Brown, a selection from Lampman's unpublished manuscripts; posthumous edition
• Wilson MacDonald, Greater Poems Of The Bible: metrical versions, biblical forms, and original poems
• E. J. Pratt, Still Life and Other Verse, Toronto: Macmillan.
• A.J.M. Smith, News of the Phoenix and Other Poems. Toronto: Ryerson Press. Governor General's Award 1943.

• Ralph Gustafson, editor, Canadian Poets, published by New Directions
• A.J.M. Smith, The Book of Canadian Poetry anthology - introduction identified modern poets in Canada as either in "The Native Tradition" or "The Cosmopolitan Tradition";

• E.K. Brown, On Canadian Poetry. Governor General's Award 1943.

  India">Indian poetry">India, in English">Indian poetry in English">in English

• Sunderrao Rama Rao Dongerkery, The Ivory Tower, Baroda: East and West Book House
• Punjalal, Lotus Petals, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram
• Krishna Shungloo, The Night is Heavy, Lahore: Free India Publications
• K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar, Indo-Anglian Literature, a pioneering literary history

  United Kingdom

• Kenneth Allott, The Ventriloquist's Doll
• Lilian Bowes Lyon, Evening in Stepney
• Cecil Day-Lewis, Word Over All
• Keith Douglas, Selected Poems
• Lawrence Durrell, A Private Country
• T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets
• David Gascoyne, Poems 1937-1942
• Geoffrey Grigson, Under the Cliff, and Other Poems
• Michael Hamburger, Friedrich Hölderlin: Poems
• J. F. Hendry, The Orchestral Mountain
• Sidney Keyes, The Cruel Solstice
• Roy McFadden, Swords and Ploughshares, Northern Ireland poet
• John Pudney, Beyond This Disregard
• Kathleen Raine, Stone and Flower, with drawings by Barbara Hepworth
• Keidrych Rhys, pen name of William Ronald Rhys Jones, editor, More Poems From The Forces, anthology
• William Soutar, But the Earth Abideth
• Dylan Thomas, New Poems, Welsh
• Terence Tiller, The Inward Animal

  United States

• Leonard Bacon, Day of Fire
• Stephen Vincent Benet, Western Star
• Kenneth Fearing, Afternoon of a Pawnbroker
• Robert Fitzgerald, A Wreath for the Sea
• Langston Hughes, Freedom's Plow
• Weldon Kees, The Last Man
• Archibald MacLeish, Colloquy for the States
• Edna St. Vincent Millay, Collected Lyrics
• Kenneth Patchen, Cloth of the Tempest
• Carl Sandburg, Home Front Memo
• Delmore Schwartz, Genesis: Book One
• Yvor Winters, The Giant Weapon, New Directions
• Elinor Wylie, Last Poems

  Other in English

• Allen Curnow, Sailing or Drowning, New Zealand

  Works published in other languages

France">French poetry">France

• Louis Aragon, Le Musee Grevin
• Lanza del Vasto, Le Pèlerinage aux sources
• Andrée Chedid, On the Trails of my Fancy
• Robert Desnos, État de veille
• Luc Estang, Mystère apprivoisé
• André Frénaud, Les Rois Mages, Anthony Hartley called this book, "probably the best book of verse published at this time"; first edition
• Jean Follain, Usage de temps
• Francis Jammes, Elégies et poésies diverses
• André Pieyre de Mandiargues, Dans les années sordides
• Jules Supervielle, Poèmes de la France malheureuse
• Raymond Queneau, Les Ziaux

  Indian">Indian poetry">Indian subcontinent

• Abdul Shakoor, Daur-i jadid ke cand muntakhab Hindu shu'ara, short biographical sketches and reviews of Hindu poets in the Urdu language
• Acharya Bhagvat, Jivan Ani Sahitya, essays in Marathi, mostly translated from Bengali and Gujarati, including some on which are on Rabindranath Tagore; criticism
• Akhtarul Imam, Girdab, Urdu-language
• Balvantrai Thakore, Navin Kavita Vise Vyakkyano, published lectures in Gujarati by this poet and critic on the forms of Gujarati poetry; criticism
• Bawa Balwant Juala Mukhi, Punjabi
• D. R. Bendre, Meghaduta, translation into Kannada from the Sanskrit of Kalidasa's Meghaduta; the translation is in a modified ragale meter; one of the most popular translations of that poet into the Kannada language
• D. V. Gundappa, Mankuthimmana Kagga, "Song of Mankutimma", Kannada
• G. V. Krishna Rao, Kavya Jagattu, on Marxism, Freudian thought and Indian poetics; Telugu; criticism
• Gauri Shankar Bhadrawahi, Srimad Bhagvadgita, translation into Dogri-Badrawahi from the Sanskrit original
• Lutif Allah Badvi, Tazkira-Elutfi, first volume of a Sindhi-language history of Sindhi poetry
• Makhan Lal Chaturvedi, Sahitya Devata, essays in literary criticism; Hindi
• Narayan Bezbarua, Mahatmar Maha Prayanat, Indian, Assamese-language
• Agyeya, Tar Saptak, groundbreaking Hindi anthology of seven previously unpublished poets which began the Prayogvad movement; that, in turn, grew into the Nayi kavita movement in Hindi poetry. "The importance of Tar Saptak to the development of Hindi verse cannot be overstated", according to Ludmila L. Rosenstein. The movement got its name as a derisive term coined by critics who noted the constant use of the word prayog in Agyeya's introduction. That introduction and later writings by Agyeya made him one of the chief literary critics in India in the rest of the 20th century. The anthology was reprinted in new editions, with the sixth appearing in 1996. The seven poets in this edition: Agyeya, Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh, Shamsher Bahadur Singh, Raghuvir Sahay, Sarveshwar Dayal Saxena, Kunwar Narain and Kedarnath Singh.
• Vijayrai Vaidya, Gujarati Sahityani Ruprekha, a Gujarati history of the literature in that language; scholarship

  Other languages

• Chairil Anwar, "Aku", Indonesian
• Odysseus Elytis, Sun the First, Greek
• Gerardo Diego, Poemas adrede ;Spain
• Sorley MacLean, Dàin do Eimhir agus Dàin Eile, Scottish Gaelic
• Eugenio Montale, Finisterre, a chapbook of poetry, smuggled into Switzerland by Gianfranco Contini; Lugano: the Collana di Lugano ; second edition, 1945, Florence: Barbèra; Italy
• César Moro, pen name of César Quíspez Asín, Le château de grisou, Peru
• Luis Rosales and Luis Felipe Vivanco, editors, Sonetos à la piedra, anthology of heroic poetry; Spain
• Ole Sarvig, Grønne Digte, the author's first book of poems; Denmark

  Awards and honors

• Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress : Allen Tate appointed this year. He would serve until 1943.
• Frost Medal: Edna St. Vincent Millay
• Governor General's Award, poetry or drama: News of the Phoenix, A.J.M. Smith

  Births

• April 22 - Louise Glück, American poet
• May 11 - Michael Palmer, American poet, translator and winner of 2006 Wallace Stevens Award
• June 7 - Nikki Giovanni, African American poet, activist and author
• July 21 - Tess Gallagher, American poet, essayist, novelist and playwright
• July 22 - Hadi Khorsandi, Iranian poet and satirist
• August 14 - Alfred Corn, American poet and essayist
• September 12 - Michael Ondaatje, Canadian-Sri Lankan novelist and poet whose Booker Prize winning novel The English Patient is adapted into an Academy-Award-winning film
• October 2 - Franklin Rosemont, American Surrealist poet, labor historian and co-founder of the Chicago Surrealist Group
• December 2 - John Balaban, American poet and translator
• December 8:
• * James Tate, American poet, educator, man of letters and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award
• * Jim Morrison, American singer, songwriter, poet; best known as the lead singer and lyricist of The Doors
• December 9 - Michael Krüger, German poet, writer, publisher and translator
• Also:
• * Alan Bold, Scottish poet
• * Richard Berengarten, English poet
• * Emanuel di Pasquale, American poet and translator
• * Vicki Feaver, English poet
• * Hadrawi, Somalian poet
• * Tridib Mitra, Bengali poet associated with the 1961-1965 Hungryalism movement
• * Robert C. Morgan, American art critic, art historian, curator, poet and artist
• * Justo Jorge Padrón, Canarian Spanish poet, translator and lawyer
• * Ron Smith, Canadian poet, author, playwright and publisher
• * Frederick Turner, English poet, critic and academic in the United States; editor of The Kenyon Review
• * Ellen Bryant Voigt, American poet
• * Bill Zavatsky, American poet, journalist, jazz pianist and translator

  Deaths

• January 3 - F. M. Cornford, 68, English classical scholar and poet
• January 31 - Loa Ho, 48, Taiwanese poet, died in jail
• February 27 - Kostis Palamas, 84 Greek poet
• March 10 - Lawrence Binyon, 72, English poet, dramatist and art scholar
• March 13 - Stephen Vincent Benét, 44, American poet, heart attack
• March 19 - Tsugi Takano 鷹野 つぎ, 52, Japanese novelist and poet
• April 29 - Sidney Keyes, 20, English poet killed in action in Tunisia
• May 29 - Guido Mazzoni, 84, Italian poet
• August 12 - Kurt Eggers, 37, Nazi German writer, poet, songwriter and playwright killed in action on the Eastern Front
• September 13 - Sanjayan, pen name of M. R. Nayar, 40, Indian, Malayalam-language poet and academic
• October 7 - Radclyffe Hall, 63, English poet and author of the lesbian novel The Well of Loneliness
• October 15 - William Soutar, 45, leading poet of the Scottish Literary Renaissance. Bedridden from 1930, he died of tuberculosis
• October 24 - Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau, 31, Canadian considered "Quebec's first truly modern poet", heart disease
• November 22 - Lorenz Hart, 48, American lyricist
• November 24 - France Balantič, 21, Yugoslav Slovene poet killed as member of Slovene Home Guard in action against Slovene Partisans
• November 26 - Charles G. D. Roberts, 83, Canadian poet and writer known as the "Father of Canadian Poetry" because he served as an inspiration for other writers of his time; also known as one of the "Confederation poets"
• November 27 - Louis Esson, 65, Australian poet and playwright
• December 2
• * Drummond Allison, English poet killed in action in Italy
• * Nordahl Grieg, 41, Norwegian poet and author killed in action over Germany