1919 in poetry

Events

• April 2 — Vladimir Nabokov, novelist and poet, leaves Russia with his family.
• October — W. B. Yeats travels to the United States and begins a lecture tour lasting until May, 1920.
• December — The Egoist, a London literary magazine founded by Dora Marsden which published early modernist works, including those of James Joyce, goes defunct.
• Two paintings by E. E. Cummings appear in a show of the New York Society of Independent Artists.
• The journal Littérature founded in France by André Breton, Philippe Soupault and Louis Aragon.
• H.D. writes Notes on Thought and Vision, a prose work, published posthumously in 1982.

Works published in English

Australia">Australian poetry">Australia

• Edwin James Brady, The House of the Winds
• John Le Gay Brereton, The Burning Marl, dedicated to "All who have fought nobly"
• C. J. Dennis, Jim of the Hills
• Shaw Neilson, Heart of Spring, Sydney, Bookfellow

Canada">Canadian poetry">Canada

• Charles G.D. Roberts, New Poems..

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

• Swami Ananda Acharya, Snow-birds, London: Macmillan, Indian poetry in English
• Harindranath Chattopadhyaya, The Coloured Garden, Adyar, Madras: The Commonwealth Office; India, Indian poetry in English
• Ardeshir M. Modi, Spring Blossoms, London: Arthur H. Stockwell
• Nanikram Vasanmal Thadani, Krishna's Flute and Other Poems, Bombay: Longmans

United Kingdom">English poetry">United Kingdom

• Richard Aldington
• * Images of Desire
• * Images of War
• Swami Ananda Acharya, Snow-birds, London: Macmillan, Indian poetry in English
• May Wedderburn Cannan, The Splendid Days
• Eva Dobell, A Bunch of Cotswold Grasses
• Ernest Dowson, The Poems and Prose of Ernest Dowson, with a memoir by Arthur Symons
• John Drinkwater, Loyalties
• T. S. Eliot, Ara Vos Prec, including "Gerontion" and the poems later published in Poems – 1920; his "Tradition and the Individual Talent" appears in The Egoist
• Ivor Gurney, War's Embers
• F. W. Harvey, Ducks
• Rudyard Kipling, The Years Between
• C. S. Lewis, writing as Clive Hamilton, Spirits in Bondage: a cycle of lyrics
• Bertram Lloyd, ed., The Paths of Glory: A collection of poems written during the War, 1914-1919
• Rose Macaulay, Three Days
• Carola Oman, The Menin Road, and other poems
• Ezra Pound, Quia Pauper Amavi
• Siegfried Sassoon, The War Poems of Sigfried Sassoon
• Dora Sigerson, Sixteen Dead Men, and Other Ballads of Easter Week
• Osbert Sitwell, Argonaut and Juggernaut
• J. C. Squire, The Birds and Other Poems
• W. B. Yeats, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom:
• * The Wild Swans at Coole, significant revision of the 1917 edition: has the poems from the 1917 edition and others, including "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" and "The Phases of the Moon"; contains: "The Wild Swans at Coole", "Ego Dominus Tuus", "The Scholars" and "On being asked for a War Poem"
• * Two Plays for Dancers,
• * A Prayer For My Daughter, first published in the November issue of Poetry magazine

United States">American poetry">United States

• John Jay Chapman, Songs and Poems
• Babette Deutsch, Banners
• Vachel Lindsay, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, a poem chronicling William Jennings Bryan's 1896 presidential campaign through the eyes of an idealistic sixteen-year-old
• Amy Lowell, Pictures of a Floating World
• Edgar Lee Masters, Starved Rock
• John G. Neihardt, The Song of Three Friends
• Ezra Pound, Quia Pauper Amavi
• John Crowe Ransom, Poems About God
• Charles Reznikoff, Rhythms II, including "The Idiot"
• Louis Untermeyer, editor, Modern American Poetry, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe; anthology, more than 130 poems, including "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight", by Vachel Lindsay and verse by Ezra Pound, Sara Teasdale, Stephen Vincent Benét, and Emily Dickinson
• John Hall Wheelock, ''Dust and Light''

Works published in other languages

France">French poetry">France

• Paul Claudel, La Messe là-bas
• Léon-Paul Fargue, Poèmes
• Yvan Goll, ed., Le coeur de l’ennemi: Anthologie de poèmes contre la guerre
• Max Jacob, La Defense de Tartuffe
• Francis Jammes, La Vierge et les sonnets, Paris: Mercure de France
• Pierre Reverdy, ''La Guitare endormie''

Indian">Indian poetry">Indian subcontinent

• Ardoshir Faramji Kharbardar, Bharatno Tankar
• Basavaraju Appa Rao, , Telugu-language
• Duvvuri Rami Reddi, Krsivaludu, has been called the most prominent poem of the Telugu-language romantic movement; depicts peasants and rural life
• Gopala Krishna Pattanayak, Gopalakrsna Padyabali, Oriya-language, vaishnav lyrics, posthumous edition
• Jammuneshwar Khataniyar, Arun, her first collection of poems, Indian, Assamese-language
• Kumaran Asan, Malayalam-language:
• * Cintavistayaya Sita,
• * Prarodanam, elegy on the death of A. R. Rajara Varma, a poet, critic and scholar; similar to Percy Bysshe Shelley's Adonais but with a distinctly Indian philosophical attitude
• Nilkanth Sharma Dal, Ramayana, Kashmiri-language poem based for the most part on the Ramacarita-Manas of Tulsidas
• Syama Sundara Das, editor, Parmala Raso, Hindi-language epic poem; written in a language mixing Brjibhasa, Kannauji and Bundeli, published by Kashi Nagari Pracharini Sabha

Spanish language

Spain">Spanish poetry">Spain

• Juan Ramón Jiménez, Piedra y cielo, Spain
• Ramón del Valle Inclán, La pipa de Kif, Spain

Latin America

• Alfonsina Storni, Without Remedy, Argentina

Other languages

• António Botto, Cantares, Portugal
• Khalil Gibran, The Procession, long ode, Arabic
• Charles Gill, Le Cap Éternité: suivi des Étoiles filantes, French language, Canada
• Uri Zvi Greenberg, In tsaytns roysh, verse and prose, Yiddish published in Austria-Hungary
• Kitahara Kakushu, Heretics, Japan
• Angiolo Silvio Novaro, Il Fabbro armonioso, Italy
• Kurt Pinthus, editor, Menschheitsdämmerung, anthology of Expressionist poetry, published in Berlin, Germany
• Anton Schnack, Strophen der Gier, Der Abenteurer and Die tausend Gelächter, Germany
• Kurt Schwitters, "An Anna Blume", widely noticed and controversial work variously described as a parody of a love poem, an emblem of the chaos and madness of the era, and as a harbinger of a new poetic language; much parodied; originally published in August in Der Sturm magazine, then later in the year in Schwitters' book, Anna Blume, Dichtungen, published by Verlag Paul Steegemann, Hannover, Germany
• Edith Sodergran, Gaudy Observations, Sweden
• August Stramm, Tropfblut, Germany, posthumous
• Giuseppe Ungaretti, Allegria di naufragi and La guerra, Italy

Awards and honors

• Nobel Prize in Literature: Carl Friedrich Georg Spitteler, Swiss poet and novelist
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Margaret Widdemer, Old Road to Paradise and Carl Sandburg, ''Corn Huskers''

Births

• January 7 – Robert Duncan, American poet associated with the Black Mountain poets and the beat generation, and a key player in the San Francisco Renaissance
• January 9 – William Morris Meredith, Jr., American poet
• January 14
• * Kaifi Azmi, Indian, Hindi- and Urdu-language poet lyricist and songwriter
• * Syed Abdul Malik, Indian, Assamese-language short-story writer and poet
• January 19 – Joan Brossa, Spanish Catalan poet
• January 20 – Silva Kaputikyan, Armenian poet
• February 12 – Subhash Mukhopadhyay, Bengali poet and Marxist
• March 17 – Abdul Rahman Pazhwak, عبدالرحمن پژواک, Afghan, Pashto-language poet, novelist, playwright and diplomat
• March 24 – Lawrence Ferlinghetti, born Lawrence Ferling, American beat poet, painter and co-founder of City Lights Bookstore and publisher
• April 15 – Emyr Humphreys, Welsh novelist, playwright and poet
• April 17 – J. Rodolfo Wilcock, Argentine-born author, poet and translator
• May 28 – May Swenson, American poet and playwright
• June 7 – Mira Schendel, born Myrrha Dub, Swiss-Brazilian modernist artist and poet
• July 19 – Miltos Sachtouris, Μίλτος Σαχτούρης, Greek
• August 30 – Jiří Orten, born Jiří Ohrenstein, Czech
• August 31 – Amrita Pritam, Punjabi poet and novelist; a woman
• September 2 – Binod Chandra Nayak, Indian, Oriya-language poet
• September 3 – Edwin Honig, American poet, critic and translator known for his English renditions of seminal works of Spanish and Portuguese literature
• September 7 – Louise Bennett-Coverley, aka "Miss Lou", Jamaican folklorist, writer and poet
• September 18 – M. Govindan, Indian, Malayalam-language poet, short-story writer, playwright and essayist
• September 23 – Tōta Kaneko, Japanese haiku poet
• September 26 – Matilde Camus, Spanish poet and researcher
• September 29 – Ruth Dallas, born Ruth Mumford, New Zealand poet
• October 1 – G. D. Madgulkar, Indian, Marathi-language poet, songwriter and short-story writer
• November 4 – Patricia Beer, English poet and critic
• November 11 – Hamish Henderson, Scottish poet, folk song collector and soldier
• November 18 – Madeline DeFrees, American poet
• Also:
• * Lance Jeffers, African American
• * Michalis Katsaros, Greek
• * Kuroda Saburu, Japanese
• * Bani Ray, Bengali writer, novelist, poet and critic, a woman
• * Buddhidhari Singha, Maithili-language poet and fiction writer
• * Girija Kumar Mathur, Indian, Hindi-language poet
• * Yoshioka Minoru, Japanese

Deaths

• January 4 – Matilda Betham-Edwards, English novelist, travel writer, poet and children's book author
• January 15 – Benjamin Paul Blood, American philosopher and poet
• January 19 – Gladys Cromwell, American poet, suicide at sea
• January 23 – Ram Ganesh Gadkari, writing poetry as Govindagraj, Indian, Marathi-language poet, playwright and humorist
• January 27 – Endre Ady, Hungarian
• February 5 – William Michael Rossetti, English poet and essayist
• May 24 – Amado Nervo, Mexican
• August 31 – Jóhann Sigurjónsson, Icelandic playwright and poet
• October 6 – Ricardo Palma, Peruvian novelist, playwright, poet, essayist and writer of short fiction
• October 30 – Ella Wheeler Wilcox, American
• December 22 – Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt, American
• Also:
• * Akshay Kumar Boral, Indian, Bengali-language poet
• * Brij Raj, Indian, Dogri-Pahadi Brajbhasha poet
• * Ganesh Janardan Agasha, Indian, Marathi-language poet and literary critic
• * Narayan Waman Tilak, Indian, Marathi-language Christian poet