1923 in poetry.html



Events

• In Paris, Basil Bunting meets Ezra Pound, whose poems will have a strong influence on Bunting throughout his career.

Works published

Picture of William Butler Yeats published this year, the same year The Cat and the Moon was published

• Djuna Barnes, A Book, collection of prose and poetry
• E. E. Cummings, Tulips and Chimneys
• Walter De La Mare, Come Hither: A Collection of Rhymes and Poems for the Young of all Ages (anthology)
• Sir Muhammad Iqbal, Payam-i-Mashriq (Message from the East), a philosophical poetry book in Persian
• D. H. Lawrence, Birds, Beasts, and Flowers, including "Snake"
• John Masefield, Collected Poems
• Sukumar Ray, Abol Tabol ("literally, "weird and random"), a collection of Bengali children's poems and rhymes
• Wallace Stevens, Harmonium, including "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" and "The Emperor of Ice-Cream" and "Le Monocle de Mon Oncle". Stevens' first book, it was published by Knopf when the was in middle age (44 years old). Its first edition sold only a hundred copies before being remaindered, suggesting that Mark Van Doren had it right when he wrote in The Nation in 1923, that Stevens's wit "is tentative, perverse, and superfine; and it will never be popular."¹ Yet by 1960 the cottage industry of Stevens studies was becoming a "multinational conglomerate".²
• Jean Toomer, Cane
• William Carlos Williams:
  • Go Go and "Spring and All"
• William Butler Yeats, The Cat and the Moon, including "Leda and the Swan"

Awards and honors

• Nobel Prize in Literature: William Butler Yeats
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver: A Few Figs from Thistles: Eight Sonnets in American Poetry, 1922. A Miscellany

Births

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

• January 15 — Ivor Cutler (died 2006), Scottish poet, songwriter and humorist
• January 16 — Anthony Hecht (died 2004), American poet
• February 2 — James Dickey (died 1997), American poet and novelist
• March 21: Nizar Qabbani, Syrian diplomat, poet and publisher
• March 27 — Louis Simpson, Jamaican-born American poet who won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
• March 30 — Milton Acorn (died 1986), Canadian poet, writer and playwright nicknamed "The People's Poet"
• April 3 — Daniel Hoffman, American poet, essayist, and academic who served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress — a position now known as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, from 1973 to 1974
• May 19 — Dorothy Hewett (died 2002), Australian poet and playwright
• July 2 — Wisława Szymborska, Polish poet, essayist and translator who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996
• July 16 — Mari Evans, African American poet, author, playwright, academic and television producer
• September 22 — Dannie Abse, British poet and writer
• October 24 — Denise Levertov (died 1997), British-born American poet
• November 9 — James Schuyler (died 1991), American poet and a central figure in the New York School
• December 21 — Richard Hugo (born "Richard Hogan") (died 1982), American poet
• date not known:
  • Alan Dugan (died 2003), American poet
  • Cola Franzen
  • David Holbrook, English poet, writer and academic
  • Pinkie Gordon Lane, African American³
  • John Logan (poet) (died 1987), American poet
  • Michalis Katsaros, Greek

Deaths

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

• January 9 – Katherine Mansfield, 34, New Zealand poet and prominent Modernist writer of short fiction
• December 15 – Frank Morton, Australian poet and journalist
• Date not known:
  • Maurice Henry Hewlett (born 1861), English historical novelist, poet and essayist
  • Sukumar Ray (born 1887), Bengali humorous poet, short-story writer and playwright

See also

Poetry portal

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

Notes

1. ^ Axelrod, Steven Gould, and Helen Deese. Critical Essays on Wallace Stevens. 1988: G. K. Hall & Co., p. 4
2. ^ Axelrod, Steven Gould, and Helen Deese. Critical Essays on Wallace Stevens. 1988: G. K. Hall & Co., p. 11
3. ^ Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 41: African-American Poets, "Pinkie Gordon Lane" article by Marilyn B. Craig