1918 in poetry

Events

• January 23 — English poet Robert Graves marries the painter Nancy Nicholson in London. Wedding guests include Wilfred Owen, who will be killed by the end of the year, and whose first nationally published poem appears 3 days later.
• April — Hu Shih, chief advocate of the revolution in Chinese literature at this time, publishes an essay, "Constructive Literary Revolution - A Literature of National Speech" in New Youth proposing a four-point reform program.
• June — English poet Basil Bunting is imprisoned as a conscientious objector.
• August 17 — English poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon meet for the last time, in London, and spend what Sassoon later describes as "the whole of a hot cloudless afternoon together."
• November 4 — English war poet Wilfred Owen is killed in action, aged 25, at the Sambre–Oise Canal with only five of his poems published. News of his death reaches his parents in Oswestry a week later on Armistice Day.

• December — The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins are published by his friend Robert Bridges; few were published in Hopkins's lifetime, so this presents his innovative sprung rhythm and imagery to many readers for the first time.

  Works published

Canada">Canadian poetry">Canada

• Marie Joussaye, Selections from Anglo-Saxon Songs.
• Wilson MacDonald, The Song Of The Prairie Land and Other Poems. Albert E. S. Smythe intr., Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.

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

• The Bengali Writers of English Verse: A Record and an Appreciation, Calcutta: Thacker, Spink U Co., 1918.; London: Longmans, Green and Co., 119 pages; anthology; Indian poetry in English, published in the United Kingdom
• Harindranath Chattopadhyaya, The Feast of Youth, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House; India, Indian poetry in English
• Baldoon Dhingra, Symphony of Love, Cambridge: Bowes and Bowes; Indian poet, writing in English, published in the United Kingdom
• Theodore Douglas Dunn, editor, The Bengali Book of English Verse, Bombay: Longmans, Green and Co.; anthology; Indian poetry in English

  United Kingdom">English poetry">United Kingdom

• Marian Allen, The Wind on the Downs
• Laurence Binyon, The New World: Poems
• Vera Brittain, Verses of a VAD
• Rupert Brooke, The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke
• Émile Cammaerts, Messines and other Poems, Belgian-born poet writing in English
• Walter de la Mare, Motley, and Other Poems
• Baldoon Dhingra, Symphony of Love, Cambridge: Bowes and Bowes; Indian poet, writing in English, published in the United Kingdom
• Eleanor Farjeon, Sonnets and Poems
• Wilfrid Gibson, Whin
• Oliver St. John Gogarty, The Ship, and Other Poems
• Helen Hamilton, Napoo!
• A. P. Herbert, The Bomber Gipsy, and Other Poems
• Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins
• C. Morton Horne, Songs of the Shrapnel Shell, and Other Verse, Irish poet published simultaneously in the United States and United Kingdom
• Ford Madox Hueffer, On Heaven, and Poems written on active service
• Aldous Huxley, The Defeat of Youth, and Other Poems
• Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, Rough Rhymes of a Padre
• D. H. Lawrence, New Poems
• Bertram Lloyd, ed., Poems Written During the Great War, 1914–1918
• Ewart Alan Mackintosh, ', Scottish poet
• Susan Miles, Dunch
• Margaret Postgate, Margaret Postgate's Poems
• Morley Roberts, War Lyrics
• Siegfried Sassoon, '
• Fredegond Shove, Dreams and Journeys
• Dora Sigerson, The Sad Years and Other Poems
• Edith Sitwell, Clowns' Houses
• Sacheverell Sitwell, The People's Palace
• Geoffrey Bache Smith, A Spring Harvest
• J. C. Squire, Poems, First Series
• Edward Thomas, Last Poems
• Katharine Tynan, Herb o' Grace, poems in war-time
• Arthur Waley, editor and translator, One Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems, anthology
• W. B. Yeats, Nine Poems, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom

  United States">American poetry">United States

• Conrad Aiken, The Charnel Rose, Senlin: A Biography, and Other Poems
• Sherwood Anderson, Mid-American Chants
• Stephen Vincent Benet, Young Adventure
• John Gould Fletcher, The Tree of Life
• Amy Lowell, Can Grande's Castle
• Edgar Lee Masters, Toward the Gulf
• Charles Reznikoff, Rhythms, his first book of poetry, a small volume, self-published
• Lola Ridge, The Ghetto and Other Poems
• Carl Sandburg, Cornhuskers, Holt, Rinehart and Winston
• Wallace Stevens, "Le Monocle de Mon Oncle" is first published (it will later be included in his first poetry book, Harmonium.

  Other in English

• C. J. Dennis, Australia:
• * Digger Smith
• * Backblock Ballads and Later Verses
• W. B. Yeats, Nine Poems, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom

  Works published in other languages

France">French poetry">France

• Guillaume Apollinaire, pen name of Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky, Calligrammes, France
• Jean Cocteau, Le Cap de Bonne Espérance, about the author's experience as a trapeze artist, written in vers brisés
• Henri de Régnier, 1914–1916: poésies
• Max Jacob, Le Cornet à Dès
• Oscar Vladislas de Lubicz-Milosz, also known as O. V. de L. Milosz, Adramandoni
• Pierre Reverdy,
• * Les Ardoises du toit
• * Les Jockeys camouflés
• Tristan Tzara, pen name of Sami Rosenstock, Vingt-cinq poèmes

  Germany">German poetry">Germany

• Kurd Adler, Wiederkehr: Gedichte
• Wilhelm Runge, Das Denken träumt

  Spanish language

• Gerardo Diego, El romancero de la novia, Spain
• Federico García Lorca, Impressiones y paisajes, Spain
• César Vallejo, Los heraldos negros the author's first book is "a bitter interpretation of provincial life" which "represented a break with symbolism and had a profound effect upon contemporary poetry in Peru

  Other languages

• Deva Kanta Barua, Sagar dekhisa, Indian, Assamese language
• Aleksandr Blok, The Twelve, a controversial long poem, one of the first poetic responses to Russia's 1917 October Revolution
• Miloš Crnjanski, Лирика Итаке, Serbian Cyrillic
• Aaro Hellaakoski, Nimettömiä lauluja, Finland
• Sh-Y. Imber, ed. Inter arma: a zamlung lirik, Galician Yiddish, Austria
• Sir Muhammad Iqbal, Rumuz-e-Bekhudi published in Persian, his second philosophical poetry book
• Augusta Peaux, Gedichten, Netherlands
• Pavlo Tychyna, Clarinets of the Sun , Ukraine

  Births

• February 1 – Muriel Spark, Scottish novelist and poet
• February 17 – William Bronk, American poet
• April 15 – Louis Coxe, American poet
• April 23 – James Kirkup, English poet, translator and travel writer
• May 10 – Jane Mayhall, American poet and novelist
• May 21 – Gopal Prasad Rimal, Indian, Nepali-language poet and playwright
• July 9 – John Heath-Stubbs, English poet and translator
• August 23 – Vinda Karandikar, also known as C. V. Karandikar, Indian, Marathi-language poet, critic and translator
• August 31 – Shimizu Motoyoshi 清水基吉, Japanese Shōwa and Heisei period novelist and poet
• September 30 – Gevorg Emin Գևորգ Էմին, Armenian
• November 14 – Valentin Iremonger, Irish poet and diplomat
• November 16 – Nicholas Moore, English poet, associated with the New Apocalyptics in the 1940s, who later drops out of the literary world
• November 18 – İlhan Berk, Turkish poet
• November 19 – W. S. Graham, Scottish poet often associated with Dylan Thomas and the neo-romantic poets
• December 8 – Hans Børli, Norwegian poet, novelist and writer
• December 30 – Al Purdy, popular Canadian poet
• Also:
• * M. Gopalakrishna Adiga, Indian, Kannada-language poet often said to be the pioneer of the "navya" literary movement in Karnataka
• * Indra Dev Bhojvani, also known as "Indur", Indian, Sindhi-language
• * Ram Narain Singh Dardi, Indian, Punjabi-language poet who wrote in the Lahndi dialect
• * Siddayya Puranika, Indian, Kannada-language poet
• * Amritdhari Singha, Indian, Maithili-language writer, philosopher and poet

  Deaths

• January 1 – Wilfred Campbell, Canadian poet
• January 6 – Dora Sigerson, Irish poet
• June 10 – Arrigo Boito, Italian poet, journalist, novelist and composer
• June 26 – Peter Rosegger, Austrian poet
• September 18 – Saul Adadi, Libyan Sephardi Jewish hakham, rosh yeshiva and writer of piyyutim
• October 12 – Mary Hannay Foott, Australian poet
• December 23 – Thérèse Schwartze, Dutch portrait painter and poet
• Also:
• * A. R. Raja Raja Varma, Indian, Malayalam-language poet, grammarian, scholar, critic and writer; nephew of Kerala Varma Valiya Koil Thampuran
• * Balakavi, pen name of Tryambak Bapuji Thomare, Indian, Marathi-language poet; died in a train accident
• * Gobinda Rath, Indian, Oriya-language poet and satirist
• * Govind Vasudev Kanitkar, Indian, Marathi-language poet and translator

  Killed in World War I

• January 28 – John McCrae, Canadian poet, author of "In Flanders Fields" and lieutenant colonel serving as a field surgeon in the war, from pneumonia
• April 1 – Isaac Rosenberg, English war poet, killed in Fampoux in the Somme at dawn ; first buried in a mass grave, but in 1926, his remains are identified and reinterred at Bailleul Road East Cemetery Plot V, St. Laurent-Blangy, Pas de Calais, France
• July 30 – Joyce Kilmer, American, killed in Second Battle of the Marne in France after volunteering to join Major William "Wild Bill" Donovan's First Battalion to lead the day's attack; while scouting, Kilmer is shot in the head near the village of Seringes; posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre
• November 4 – Wilfred Owen, English war poet, killed in action in France
• John Munro , Scottish Gaelic poet, killed serving with the Seaforth Highlanders
• See also Guillaume Apollinaire below

  Died in the [1918 flu pandemic]

• October 21 – E. J. Luce, Jèrriais poet and journalist
• November 9 – Guillaume Apollinaire, French language poet, writer and art critic credited with coining the word surrealism, dies two years after being wounded in World War I and still vulnerable from his injury
• December 2 – Edmond Rostand, French poet and dramatist

  Awards and honors

• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Sara Teasdale: Love Songs