1996 in poetry

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Events

April – National Poetry Month established by the American Poets as a way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States.
Summer/Autumn – Ledbury Poetry Festival established in England.
November 11 – A memorial to John Betjeman is unveiled in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey by Lady Wilson.

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:

Australia">Australian literature">Australia

Raewyn Alexander, Fat, Auckland: Penguin
Robert Gray, Lineations
Jennifer Harrison: Cabramatta/Cudmirrah
Les Murray:
* Late Summer Fires
* Subhuman Redneck Poems, Carcanet and Sydney, Duffy & Snellgrove winner of the 1996 T. S. Eliot Prize
Peter Porter, editor, The Oxford book of Modern Australian Verse, Melbourne: Oxford University Press
Philip Salom: Feeding the Ghost.

Canada">Canadian literature">Canada

Roo Borson, Water Memory, American-Canadian
Cyril Dabydeen, editor, Another Way to Dance: Contemporary Asian Poetry from Canada and the United States, Toronto: TSAR
Kristjana Gunnar, Exiles Among You
Dennis Lee, Nightwatch: New and Selected Poems, 1968-1996
Sylvia Legris:
*ash petals
*Circuitry of Veins
Steve McCaffery, The Cheat of Words
George McWhirter, A Staircase for All Souls
Erín Moure, Search Procedures
Janis Rapoport, After Paradise
Joe Rosenblatt, The Voluptuous Gardener. Beach Holme Press.
Stephen Scobie, Taking the Gate: A Journey Through Scotland
Raymond Souster, Close to Home. Ottawa: Oberon Press.

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

Keki N. Daruwalla, A Summer of Tigers, Delhi: Oxford University Press
Kamala Das, My Story, New Delhi: Sterling Publishers; autobiography

Ireland">Irish poetry">Ireland

Pat Boran, The Shape of Water, Ireland
Ciaran Carson, Opera Et Cetera, Oldcastle: Gallery Press,
Seán Dunne, Time and the Island, Oldcastle: Gallery Press,
Seamus Heaney, The Spirit Level
Thomas McCarthy, The Lost Province, Anvil Press, London
Ulick O'Connor, Poems of the Damned, a translation of Les Fleurs du mal from the original French of Charles Baudelaire
Bernard O'Donoghue, Gunpowder, Irish poet living in and published in the United Kingdom

New Zealand">New Zealand literature">New Zealand

James K. Baxter, posthumous, Cold Spring : Baxter's Unpublished Early Collection, edited by Paul Millar, Auckland: Oxford University Press
Alan Brunton, Romaunt of Glossa: a saga, Bumper Books
Alistair Campbell, Pocket: Collected Poems, Christchurch: Hazard Press
Allen Curnow, New and Collected Poems 1941-1995
Maurice Gee, Loving Ways
Bill Manhire:
* My Sunshine
* ''Sheet Music: Poems 1967-1982''

United Kingdom">British literature">United Kingdom

John Agard and Grace Nichols, A Caribbean Dozen: A Collection of Poems, London: Walker Books
James Berry, Playing a Dazzler
Ciarán Carson: Opera Et Cetera, Bloodaxe, Wake Forest University Press, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom
Carol Ann Duffy:
* Salmon - Carol Ann Duffy: Selected Poems, Salmon Poetry
* Editor, with Trisha Rafferty, Stopping for Death, Viking
T. S. Eliot, Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909-1917, early unpublished verse that the author had said he never wanted published; edited by Christopher Ricks; posthumous
Seamus Heaney, The Spirit Level Faber & Faber; Northern Ireland poet published in the United Kingdom
John Heath-Stubbs, Galileo's Salad
Tobias Hill, Midnight in the City of Clocks
Grace Nichols, Sunris, London: Virago Press
Bernard O'Donoghue, Gunpowder, Irish poet living in and published in the United Kingdom
Iona Opie, editor, My Very First Mother Goose, a collection of nursery rhymes
Alice Oswald, The Thing in the Gap-Stone Stile, Oxford University Press,
Craig Raine, Clay: Whereabouts Unknown
Peter Reading, Collected Poems 1985-1996
Peter Redgrove:
* Assembling a Ghost
* The Book of Wonders: The Best of Peter Redgrove's Poetry, edited by Jeremy Robinson
Iain Sinclair, editor, Conductors of Chaos: A Poetry Anthology, anthology of poets associated with or seen as precursors to the British Poetry Revival; Picador
Benjamin Zephaniah, ''Propa Propaganda''

Criticism, scholarship, and biography in the United Kingdom

Anthony Cronin, Samuel Beckett: The Last Modernist, one of The New York Times "notable books of the year" for 1997, when it was published in the United States

United States">American poetry">United States

Elizabeth Alexander, Body of Life
A.R. Ammons, Brink Road
Virginia Hamilton Adair, Ants on the Melon, the author's first book of poems, at age 83
Joseph Brodsky: So Forth : Poems, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux Russian-American
Raymond Carver, All of Us: The Collected Poems
Juliana Chang, editor, Quiet Fire: A Historical Anthology of Asian American poetry, 1892-1970, New York: The Asian American Writers' Workshop
Ed Dorn, High West Rendezvous
Robert Fagles, translator, The Odyssey, from the original Ancient Greek of Homer
Donald Hall, The Old Life, four short poems, a long poem and three elegies
Robert Hass, Sun Under Wood, lyric poems
Louise Glück, Meadowlands
Haim Gouri, Milim Be-Dami Holeh Ahavah, selected poems in English translation Detroit: Wayne State University Press,
Paul Henry, Captive Audience, Seren
Mark Jarman and David Mason, editors, Rebel Angels: 25 Poets of the New Formalism
Ronald Johnson, ARK
Kenneth Koch, The Art of Poetry, Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press
Maxine Kumin, Connecting the Dots
James McMichael, The World at Large: New and Selected Poems, 1971-1996
W. S. Merwin
* Editor, Lament for the Makers: A Memorial Anthology, Washington: Counterpoint
* Translator, Pieces of Shadow: Selected Poems of Jaime Sabines
* The Vixen: Poems, New York: Knopf
Robert Pinsky, The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems, 1966-1996
James Reiss, The Parable of Fire
Patti Smith, The Coral Sea
Gary Snyder, Mountains and Rivers Without End
Brian Swann, editor, Wearing the Morning Star: Native American Song-Poems, New York: Random House
Henry Taylor, Understanding Fiction: Poems 1986-1996
C. K. Williams, ''The Vigil''

Poets in ''[The [Best American Poetry 1996]]''

Poems from these 75 poets were in The Best American Poetry 1996, edited by David Lehman, guest editor Adrienne Rich:

Other in English

Sir Muhammad Iqbal, Bang-i-Dara, a philosophical poetry book in Urdu; M.A.K. Khalil translation into English of the 1923 work

Works published in other languages

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

Arabic">Arabic poetry">Arabic

Abd al-Wahhab Al-Bayyati, "The Dragon", Iraq
Books of poetry by:
* in Egypt: Muhammad Salih (poet), Rif'at Sallam, Imad Abu-Salih, and Muhammad Mutawalli
* in Lebanon: Yahya Jabir, 'Abduh Wazin, and Bassam Hajjar
* in Syria: Nuri al-Jarrah
* in Morocco: 'Abd al-Latif Lu'abi, Muhammad Binnis, M. Bin Talhah, Mahdi Khuraif, and Tiraibaq Ahmad

Denmark">Danish poetry">Denmark

Naja Marie Aidt, Huset overfor
Niels Frank, Tabernakel
Katrine Marie Guldager, Blank, publisher: Gyldendal
Klaus Høeck, Skovene , publisher: Gyldendal
Per Højholt, Anekdoter, the end of the author's Praksis series in poetry and prose
Klaus Rifbjerg, Leksikon
Søren Ulrik Thomsen; Denmark:
* Det skabtes vaklen: Arabesker, poetry"
* En dans på gloser,, critical essays

French language

Canada">Canadian poetry">Canada, in French

Denise Desautels, «Ma joie», crie-t-elle, illustrated with drawings by Francine Simonin, Montréal: Le Noroît
Suzanne Jacob, Les écrits de l'eau, Montréal: l'Hexagone
Serge Patrice Thibodeau, ''Traversée du désert''

Switzerland">Swiss poetry">Switzerland, in French

Markus Hediger, Ne retournez pas la pierre, Editions de l'Aire, Vevey

France">French poetry">France

Michel Butor, A la frontière
Bertrand Degott, Éboulements et Taillis
Claude Esteban, Sur la dernière lande, Fourbis
Michel Houellebecq, Le Sens du combat, poèmes, Flammarion
Abdellatif Laabi, Le Spleen de Casablanca. La Différence, Paris, Moroccan author writing in French and published in France
Dominique Pagnier, La Faveur de l'obscurité
Esther Tellermann, Pangeia
Joël Vernet, ''Totems de sable''

Germany">German poetry">Germany

Christoph Buchwald, general editor, Michael Brown and Michael Buselmeier, guest editors, Jahrbuch der Lyrik 1996/97, publisher: Beck; anthology
Sarah Kirsch, Bodenlos, winner of the Büchner-Preis
Inge Müller, Irgendwo: noch einmal möcht ich sehn, poetry, prose, diary, edited and with commentary by Ines Geipel
Bert Papenfuß, ''Berliner Zapfenstreich: Schnelle Eingreifsgesänge''

Hebrew">Modern Hebrew poetry">Hebrew

Ory Bernstein, Zman shel aherim
Roni Somek, Gan eden le-orez
Avner Treinin, Ma`a lot Ahaz
Nathan Zach, ''Mikhevan she`ani baSviva''

India">Indian poetry">India

Listed in alphabetical order by first name:

Amarjit Chandan, Beejak, Navyug, New Delhi; Punjabi-language
Gagan Gill, Andhere men Buddha, New Delhi: Rajkamal Prakashan, New Delhi, 1996, Bharatiya Jnanpith; Hindi-language
Jiban Narah, Tumi Poka Dhanar Dore, Guwahati, Assam: Puthiniketan; Indian, Assamese-language
Kedarnath Singh, Bagh, Delhi: Bharatiya Jnanpith; Hindi-language
K. Satchidanandan, Malayalam; Malayalam-language
Nilmani Phookan, Cheena Kavita, Guwahati, Assam: Students’ Store, Assamese-language
Raghavan Atholi, Kandathi, Thrissur: Current Books; Malayalam-language
Saleel Wagh, Nivadak Kavita, Pune: Time and Space Communications; Marathi-language
Vasant Abaji Dahake, Shunah-shepa; Marathi-language

Italy">Italian poetry">Italy

Eugenio Montale, Diario postumo: 66 poesie e altre, edited by Annalisa Cima; publisher: Mondadori
Maria Luisa Spaziani, I fasti dell’ortica
Andrea Zanzotto, ''Meteo''

Latin America">Latin America poetry">Latin America

Sergio Badilla Castillo, Nordic Saga Monteverdi Editions. 1996, Santiago de Chile.

Norway">Norwegian poetry">Norway

Erling Aadland, Poetisk tenkning i Rolf Jacobsens lyrikk, analysis of the verse of Rolf Jacobsen; criticism
Inger Hagerup, a book of poetry
Gunvor Hofmo, Samlede dikt
Sigmund Mjelve, a book of poetry

Poland">Polish poetry">Poland

Stanisław Barańczak, Poezja i duch uogolnienia. Wybor esejow 1970-1995, criticism; Kraków: Znak
Urszula Koziol, Wielka pauza
Ryszard Krynicki, Magnetyczny punkt. Wybrane wiersze i przeklady ; Warsaw: CiS
Ewa Lipska, Wspólnicy zielonego wiatraczka. Lekcja literatury z Krzysztofem Lisowskim, selected poems, Kraków: Wydawnictwo literackie
Czeslaw Milosz:
* Legendy nowoczesnoshci, wartime essays and wartime correspondence with Jerzy Andrzejewski
* Cóz to za goshcia mielishmy, a biography of his friend, the late poet Anna Swirszczynska
Tadeusz Różewicz, Zawsze fragment. Recycling, Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Dolnośląskie
Wisława Szymborska: Widok z ziarnkiem piasku, the author was the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature this year
Jan Twardowski, Rwane prosto z krzaka Warsaw: PIW

Russian">Russian poetry">Russian

Yevgeny Yevtushenko, "Trinadtsat", a long poem alluding to "Dvenadtsat" by Aleksandr Blok, about the Russian Revolution
Books of poetry were published by Bella Akhmadulina, Sergey Biryukov, Oleg Chukhontsev, Arkady Dragomoshchenko, Vladimir Gandelsman, Sergey Gandlevsky, Yelena Kabysh, Svetlana Kekova, Aleksandr Kushner, Ilya Kutik, Aleksey Parshchikov, Dmitry Prigov, Lev Rubinshtein, Yelena Shvarts, Genrikh Sapgir, Vladimir Sokolov, and Andrey Voznesensky

Spain">Spanish poetry">Spain

Matilde Camus, Reflexiones a medianoche
Ánchel Conte, ''O tiempo y os días''

Sweden">Swedish poetry">Sweden

Lars Gustafsson, Variationer över ett tema av Silfverstolpe
Gunnar D. Hansson, AB Neanderthal
Juris Kronbergs, Vilks vienacis
Lukas Moodysson, Souvenir
Göran Sonnevi, Mozarts tredje hjärna
Jesper Svenbro, Vid budet att Santo Bambino di Aracœli slutligen stulits av maffian
Tomas Tranströmer, ''Sorgegondolen''

Yiddish">Yiddish poetry">Yiddish

Joseph Bar-El, Di shire fun Yankev Fridman, criticism
and, Shpigl-ksav ; the authors are father and son; Israel
Yitskhok Niborski, Vi fun a pustn fas ; Israel
, Rays nisht op di blum ; Israel
Yankev Tsvi Shargel, Tsum eygenem shtern ; translations and original poems; Israel

Other

Gerrit Komrij, Kijken is bekeken worden; Netherlands
Wang Huairang, Zhongguoren: buguide ren, China
Krystyna Rodowska, Na dole płomień W górze płomień, Poland
Tadeusz Różewicz, Zawsze fragment, Poland
Hilmi Yavuz, Çöl ; Turkey

Awards and honors

Nobel prize: Wislawa Szymborska

Australia">Australian poetry">Australia

C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Peter Bakowski, In the Human Night
Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Eric Beach, Weeping for Lost Babylon
Mary Gilmore Prize: Morgan Yasbincek - ''Night Reversing''

Canada">Canadian poetry">Canada

Gerald Lampert Award: Maureen Hynes, Rough Skin
Archibald Lampman Award: Gary Geddes, The Perfect Cold Warrior
1996 Governor General's Awards: E. D. Blodgett, Apostrophes: Woman at a Piano ; Serge Patrice Thibodeau, Le Quatuor de l'errance / La Traversée du désert
Pat Lowther Award: Lorna Crozier, Everything Arrives at the Light
Prix Alain-Grandbois: Hélène Dorion, Sans bord, sans bout du monde
Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize: Patrick Lane, Too Spare, Too Fierce
Prix Émile-Nelligan: Carle Coppens, ''Poèmes contre la montre''

United Kingdom">English poetry">United Kingdom

Cholmondeley Award: Elizabeth Bartlett, Dorothy Nimmo, Peter Scupham, Iain Crichton Smith
Eric Gregory Award: Sue Butler, Cathy Cullis, Jane Griffiths, Jane Holland, Chris Jones, Sinéad Morrissey, Kate Thomas
Forward Poetry Prize Best Collection: John Fuller, Stones and Fires
Forward Poetry Prize Best First Collection: Kate Clanchy, Slattern
Orange Prize for Fiction: Helen Dunmore, A Spell of Winter
Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Peter Redgrove
T. S. Eliot Prize : Les Murray, Subhuman Redneck Poems
Whitbread Award for poetry and for book of the year : Seamus Heaney, ''The Spirit Level''

United States">American poetry">United States

Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Helen Conkling, Red Peony Night
AML Award for poetry to Leslie Norris for Collected Poems
Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: John Voiklis, "The Princeling's Apology", and Sarah Arvio, "Visits from the Seventh"
Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry: Kenneth Koch, One Train
National Book Award for poetry: Hayden Carruth, Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Jorie Graham: The Dream of the Unified Field
Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize: Gerald Stern
Wallace Stevens Award: Adrienne Rich
Whiting Awards: Brigit Pegeen Kelly, Elizabeth Spires, Patricia Storace
Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets: Jay Wright

Awards and honors elsewhere

Denmark:
* Golden Laurels: Henrik Nordbrandt
* Critics' Prize: Per Højholt
Japan: Sakutaro Hagiwara Prize in Poetry: Masao Tsuji for Haikai Tsuji shu
Spain: Cervantes Prize: José García Nieto
Turkey: President's Award: Cahit Külebi

Deaths

Birth years link to the corresponding " in poetry" article:

January 28 - Joseph Brodsky, 55, Russian-American poet and essayist, awarded Nobel Prize in Literature and chosen Poet Laureate of the United States, of a heart attack
February 11 - Amelia Rosselli, 66, Italian poet and ethnomusicologist, from suicide, on the same date Sylvia Plath killed herself.
March 18 - Odysseus Elytis, Greek
April 13 - George Mackay Brown, 74, Scottish poet, author and dramatist
May 8 - Larry Levis, 49, American poet, of a heart attack
May 11 - Sam Ragan, American poet, journalist; North Carolina Poet Laureate, 1982–1996
August 18 - Geoffrey Dearmer, 103, English poet
September 25 - Mina Loy, 83, artist, poet, Futurist, actor
November 13 - Margaret Steuart Pollard, 93, English bard of the Cornish Gorsedd, philanthropist, oriental scholar and eccentric
November 24 - Sorley MacLean, 85, Scottish
December 10 - Dorothy Porter, 54, Australian poet
December 14 - Gaston Miron, 68 Canada
Date not known:
* Haermann Kesten, German
* Tom Rawling, English poet and angler
* Constance Urdang, American poet and novelist, wife of Donald Finkel