1915 in poetry

Events

• February - The group of young Colombian writers and artists in Medellín, los Panidas, first publish their magazine Panida, including the first published poem of León de Greiff, the editor, "Ballad of the Mad Owls".
• April 6 - Publication in London of the American Ezra Pound's poetry collection Cathay, "translations... for the most part of the Chinese of Rihaku, from the notes of the late Ernest Fenollosa, and the decipherings of the Professors Mori and Ariga", by Elkin Mathews.
• April 24 - Deportation of Armenian notables from Istanbul begins. Among deported poets killed as part of the Armenian Genocide are Ardashes Harutiunian, Jacques Sayabalian, Ruben Sevak and Siamanto.
• c. May - Publication of the first modern book illustrated with wood engravings, Frances Cornford's Spring Morning with engravings by the poet's cousin Gwen Raverat.
• July - is founded by Alfred Kreymborg; it will run until 1917, publishing poetry, other writing and visual art.
• August-December - Ezra Pound is completing the first sections of his poem The Cantos.

  Poets and World War I

• May 13 - While Julian Grenfell stands talking with other officers, a shell lands a few yards away and a splinter hits him in the head. He is taken to a hospital in Boulogne, where he dies 13 days later. His poem "Into Battle" is published in The Times the day after his death. His younger brother Gerald William Grenfell is killed in action 2 months later.
• August 3-4 - English poet and lance corporal F. W. Harvey undertakes an action of "conspicuous gallantry" while fighting in France for which he is awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal.
• September 11 - Publication of Lucy Whitmell's poem "Christ in Flanders" in The Spectator.
• Expatriate Belgian poet Émile Cammaerts' poems are published in London by John Lane The Bodley Head as Belgian poems: chants patriotiques et autres poèmes in French with English translations by his wife, Tita Brand-Cammaerts.
• Blaise Cendrars, pen name of Frédéric Louis Sauser, a Swiss novelist and poet naturalized as a French citizen in 1916, loses his right arm during his service in World War I

  Works published in English

Australia">Australian poetry">Australia

• C. J. Dennis, long poem The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, after serialization in The Bulletin since 1909, Australia
• Henry Lawson, My Army, o my Army! and other Songs, Australia
• Shaw Neilson, Old Granny Sullivan, Sydney, Bookfellow, Australia

  Canada">Canadian poetry">Canada

• Arthur Stanley Bourinot, Laurentian Lyrics and Other Poems
• John McCrae, "In Flanders Fields", a war memorial poem, is written on May 3 after McCrae's friend and former student, Lt. Alexis Helmer, was killed in battle ; later in the year the poem is published in Punch
• Robert W. Norwood, His Lady of the Sonnets
• Duncan Campbell Scott, Lines in Memory of Edmund Morris
• Frederick George Scott, The Gates of Time, and Other Poems (London: Samuel Bagster & Sons.

  United Kingdom">English poetry">United Kingdom

• Richard Aldington, Images 1910-15
• Rupert Brooke, 1914 & Other Poems
• G. K. Chesterton, Poems
• Frances Cornford, Spring Morning
• John Drinkwater, Swords and Ploughshares
• T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock published in Poetry magazine in Chicago, then, later this year, in a book in the United Kingdom
• F. S. Flint, Cadences
• Wilfrid Gibson, Battle
• Thomas Hardy, "The Convergence of the Twain, lines on the loss of the Titanic"
• Ford Madox Hueffer, Antwerp
• Violet Jacob, Songs of Angus, Scottish poet
• Rudyard Kipling
• * The Fringes of the Fleet, essays and poems
• * "My Boy Jack", written after his beloved son, John goes missing in the Battle of Loos during World War I; years later, Jack's death is confirmed to Kipling and his family; a play and film with the same title are later created, based on the Kipling family's loss
• Ronald Knox, Absolute and Abitofhell, first published in Oxford Magazine ; satirical verse on Foundations, 1912
• Richard Le Gallienne, The Silk-Hat Soldier, and Other Poems
• Francis Ledwidge, Songs of the Fields, Irish author published in the United Kingdom

• John McCrae, "In Flanders Fields", a war memorial poem, is written on May 3 after McCrae's friend and former student, Lt. Alexis Helmer, was killed in battle ; later in the year the poem is published in Punch
• James Pittendrigh Macgillivray, Pro Patria, Scottish poet
• Alice Meynell, Poems of the War
• Jessie Pope, Jessie Pope's War Poems and More War Poems
• Ezra Pound, Cathay, American poet published in the United Kingdom
• Hardwicke Rawnsley, The European War 1914-1915: Poems
• Herbert Read, Songs of Chaos
• George William Russell, :
• * Gods of War, with Other Poems
• * Imaginations and Reveries
• Edith Sitwell, The Mother and Other Poems
• James Stephens, Irish author published in the United Kingdom:
• * The Adventures of Seumas Beg: The Rocky Road to Dublin
• * Songs from the Clay
• J. R. R. Tolkien, "Goblin Feet", published in Oxford Poetry
• Katharine Tynan, Flower of Youth: poems in war time
• Anna Wickham, The Contemplative Quarry

  Anthologies

• H. B. Elliott, ed., Lest We Forget: A War Anthology
• Poems of Today
• Ezra Pound, ed., Catholic Anthology, London
• War Poems from The Times, August 1914-1915

  ''Some Imagist Poets'' anthology

• Richard Aldington: "Childhood", "The Poplar", "Round-Pond", "Daisy", "Epigrams", "The Faun sees Snow for the First Time", "Lemures"
• H.D. : "The Pool", "The Garden", "Sea Lily", "Sea Iris", "Sea Rose", "Oread", "Orion Dead"
• John Gould Fletcher: "The Blue Symphony", "London Excursion"
• F. S. Flint: "Trees", "Lunch", "Malady", "Accident", "Fragment", "Houses", "Eau-Forte"
• D. H. Lawrence: "Ballad of Another Ophelia", "Illicit", "Fireflies in the Corn", "A Woman and Her Dead Husband", "The Mowers", "Scent of Irises", "Green"
• Amy Lowell: "Venus Transiens", "The Travelling Bear", "The Letter", "Grotesque", "Bullion", "Solitaire", "The Bombardment"

  United States">American poetry">United States

• Djuna Barnes, The Book of Repulsive Women, her first book of poems, which she described as a collection of "rhythms and drawings"
• Stephen Vincent Benet, Five Men and Pompey
• Adelaide Crapsey, Verse, featuring her invention of the quintain, a five-line form
• T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock first published in Poetry magazine
• John Gould Fletcher, Irradiations: Sand and Spray
• Ring Lardner, Bib Ballads
• Archibald MacLeish, Songs for a Summer's Day
• Edgar Lee Masters, Spoon River Anthology
• John G. Neihardt, The Song of Hugh Glass
• Ezra Pound:
• * Cathay, American poet published in the United Kingdom
• * Editor, Catholic Anthology, London
• Sara Teasdale, Rivers to the Sea

  Other in English

• Roby Datta, Indian poet writing in English:
• * Poems: Pictures and Songs to which is prefixed "The Philosophy of Art" Calcutta: Das Gupta and Co.
• * Stories in blank verse to which is added an epic fragment, Calcutta: Das Gupta & Co.
• Francis Ledwidge, Songs of the Fields, Irish author published in the United Kingdom
• James Stephens, Irish author published in the United Kingdom:
• * The Adventures of Seumas Beg; The Rocky Road to Dublin
• * Songs from the Clay

  Works published in other languages

France">French poetry">France

• Guillaume Apollinaire, pen name of Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky, Case d'armons
• Paul Claudel, Corona benignitatis anni dei
• Oscar Vladislas de Lubicz-Milosz, also known as O. V. de L. Milosz, Poèmes
• Pierre Reverdy, Poèmes en prose

  Other languages

• Walter Flex, Sonne und Schilde, German
• Yvan Goll, Élegies internationales: Pamphlets contre la guerre, German poet in Switzerland writing in French
• Uri Zvi Greenberg, Ergets oyf felder, Yiddish published in Austria-Hungary
• Sir Muhammad Iqbal, Asrar-i-Khudi or The Secrets of the Self his first philosophical book of poetry, published in Persian
• Vasily Kamensky, Stenka Razin, Russian
• Wilhelm Klemm, Gloria: Kriegsgedichte aus dem Felde, German
• Vladimir Mayakovsky, A Cloud in Trousers, Russian
• Narasinghrao, Smaranasamhita, an elegy to his son, Indian, writing in Gujarati
• Barbu Nemțeanu, Stropi de soare, Romanian
• Georg Trakl, Sebastian im Traum ; Austrian poet published in Germany

  Awards and honors

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Romain Rolland

  Births

• January 12 - Margaret Danner, African-American
• January 15 - Chaganti Somayajulu, Indian, Telugu-language short-story writer and poet
• January 31 - Thomas Merton, American poet, author and monk
• March 12 - José Luis Rodríguez Vélez, Panamanian composer, orchestra director, saxophonist, clarinetist and guitarist
• April 21 - John Manifold, Australian
• April 22 - Hem Barua, Indian, Assamese-language poet and politician
• May 28 - Dorothy Auchterlonie, Australian
• May 30 - Michael Thwaites, Australian poet, academic, intelligence officer and activist
• May 31 - Judith Wright, Australian
• June 8
• * Kayyar Kinhanna Rai, Indian
• * Ruth Stone, American poet, recipient of 2002 National Book Award and 2002 Wallace Stevens Award
• July 1 - Alun Lewis, Welsh war poet
• July 7 - Margaret Walker, African-American poet and novelist
• July 16 - David Campbell, Australian
• August - Bawa Balwant, Indian, Punjabi poet
• August 4 - Patrick Anderson, English-born Canadian
• August 28 - Claude Roy, pen name of Claude Orland, French poet, novelist, essayist, art critic and journalist; an activist in the Communist Party until his expulsion in 1956
• September 5 - Maheswar Neog, Indian, Assamese-language scholar and poet
• November 3 - Eric Roach, Caribbean poet from Tobago
• November 8 - George Sutherland Fraser, Scottish-born poet and critic
• December 8 - Nikos Gatsos, Greek
• December 22 - David Martin, Australian
• December 27 - John Cornford, English
• December 31 - Sam Ragan, American poet and journalist, North Carolina Poet Laureate, 1982–1996
• Also:
• * Nanina Alba, African-American
• * Akhtarul Imam, Indian, Urdu-language poet in the "Halqa-i-Arba-i Zauq" movement
• * K. S. Narasimha Swami, better known as "K.S. NA", Indian, Kannada-language poet
• * Manmohan, pen name of Gopal Narhar Natu, Indian, Marathi-language poet
• * Nand Lal Ambardar, Indian, Kashmiri-language poet
• * Palagummi Padmaraju, short-story writer, poet, film-industry writer
• * Prabhu Chugani, "Wafa", Indian, Sindhi-language poet
• * Rameshvar Shukla, pen name: Anchal, wrote in Khadi Boli and Braj Bhasa dialects of Hindi, poet, short-story writer and novelist
• * Sumitra Kumari Sinha, Indian, Hindi-language poet and short-story writer

  Deaths

• January 3 - James Elroy Flecker, English poet, novelist and dramatist, from tuberculosis in Switzerland
• February 8 - Takashi Nagatsuka 長塚 節, Japanese poet and novelist
• July 10 - Vazha-Pshavela, Georgian poet
• December 1 - Stuart Merrill, American Symbolist poet writing in French, from heart disease
• Also
• * Hortensia Antommarchi, Colombian poet
• * Edmond Laforest, Haitian French language poet, suicide
• * V. C. Balakrishna Panikker, Indian, Malayalam-language poet

  Killed in World War I

• April 23
• * Rupert Brooke, English poet and writer, 27, died of septic pneumonia from an infected mosquito bite while sailing with the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force off the island of Lemnos in the Aegean on its way to Gallipoli
• * Robert W. Sterling, Scottish poet, 21, killed in action
• May 8 - Walter Lyon, Scottish war poet, 28, missing in action
• May 26 - Julian Grenfell, English war poet, 27, killed at Ypres
• July 30 - Gerald William Grenfell, English war poet, 25, killed in action
• September 1 - August Stramm, German poet and playwright, 41, killed in action on the Eastern Front
• October 13 - Charles Sorley, British poet, 20, shot in the head by a sniper, at the Battle of Loos in France
• December 23 - Roland Leighton, English war poet, 20, died of wounds in Casualty Clearing Station at Louvencourt, having been shot through the stomach by a sniper at Hébuterne