1928 in poetry

Events

• January 16 - English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy's ashes are interred in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey in London; pallbearers at the ceremony include Stanley Baldwin, J. M. Barrie, John Galsworthy, Edmund Gosse, A. E. Housman, Rudyard Kipling, Ramsay MacDonald and George Bernard Shaw. At the same time, Hardy's heart is interred where he wished to be buried, in the grave of his first wife, Emma, in the churchyard of his parish of birth, Stinsford in Dorset. Later in the year, his widow Florence publishes the first part of a biography, The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 1840–1891, in fact largely dictated by Hardy.
• September 21 - The Gorseth Kernow is set up at Boscawen-Un in Cornwall by Henry Jenner and others.
• November 6 - Xu Zhimo writes his poem 再別康橋.
• Russian poets Daniil Kharms and Alexander Vvedensky found OBERIU, an avant-garde grouping of Russian post-Futurist poets in the 1920s-1930s
• American poets Charles Reznikoff, George Oppen and Louis Zukofsky meet in New York City; they will become some of the founders of the Objectivist poets group.
• The clerihew, the comic pseudo-biographical verse form associated with Edmund Clerihew Bentley, is mentioned in print for the first time.

  Works published in English

Canada">Canadian poetry">Canada

• Dorothy Livesay, Green Pitcher. Toronto: Macmillan.
• Seranus, Later Poems and New Villanelles.
• Arthur Stringer, A Woman At Dusk and Other Poems. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.

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

• V. N. Bhusan, Silhouettes, Masulpatam: Youth of Asia Society; India, Indian poetry in English
• Joseph Furtado, A Goan Fiddler
• Shyam Sunder Lal Chordia, Chitor and Other Poems, Bombay: D. B. Taraporevala Sons and Co.

  United Kingdom">English poetry">United Kingdom

• Rupert Brooke, Collected Poems, see also 1946
• Roy Campbell, The Wayzgoose, a lampoon, in rhyming couplets, on the cultural shortcomings of South Africa; South African native published in the United Kingdom, and at this time living there
• W. H. Davies, Collected Poems
• T. S. Eliot:
• * "Perch' Io non Spero" was published in the Spring, 1928 issue of Commerce along with a French translation.
• * A Song for Simeon printed in September by Faber & Gwyer as part of its Ariel poems series.
• H. S. Milford, editor, The Oxford Book of English Verse of the Romantic Period, 1798-1837: 1798-1837, Clarndon Press, anthology
• Thomas Hardy, Winter Words in Various Moods and Metres,
• D. H. Lawrence, Collected Poems
• John Masefield, Midsummer Night, and Other Tales in Verse
• Laura Riding, Love as Love, Death as Death
• Siegfried Sassoon, The Heart's Journey
• A. J. A. Symons, An Anthology of 'Nineties' Verse
• Humbert Wolfe:
• * The Silver Cat, and Other Poems
• This Blind Rose
• W.B. Yeats, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom):
• * The Tower, including "Sailing to Byzantium" and "Leda and the Swan", Irish
• * The Death of Synge, and Other Passages from an Old Diary

  United States">American poetry">United States

• W. H. Auden, Poems
• Stephen Vincent Benét, John Brown's Body
• E. E. Cummings, Christmas Tree
• John Gould Fletcher, The Black Rock
• Robert Frost, West-Running Brook
• Robert Hillyer, The Seventh Hill
• Robinson Jeffers, Cawdor and Other Poems
• William Ellery Leonard, A Son of Earth
• Archibald MacLeish, The Hamlet of A. MacLeish
• Edgar Lee Masters, Jack Kelso: A Dramatic Poem
• Joseph Moncure March, "The Wild Party"
• Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Buck in the Snow
• Dorothy Parker, Sunset Gun
• Ezra Pound:
• * Selected Poems, edited by T. S. Eliot, London, American poet living in Europe
• * A Draft of the Cantos 17-27
• Edward Arlington Robinson, Sonnets, 1889-1927
• Carl Sandburg, Good Morning, America
• Allen Tate, Mr. Pope and Other Poems, including "Ode to the Confederate Dead"
• Amos Wilder, Arachne: poems, Yale University Press
• Elinor Wylie, Trivial Breath
• Louis Zukofsky completes the original versions of "A" 1, 2, 3 and 4, which have been compared to Pound's Cantos; the fragmentary long poem will be a lifelong project

  Other in English

• John Le Gay Brereton, Swags Up, Australia
• Roy Campbell, The Wayzgoose: A South African Satire, South Africa
• W.B. Yeats, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom:
• * The Tower, including "Sailing to Byzantium" and "Leda and the Swan", Irish
• * The Death of Synge, and Other Passages from an Old Diary

  Works published in other languages

France">French poetry">France

• René Char, Les Cloches sur le coeur
• Léon-Paul Fargue:
• * Banalité
• * Vulturne
• Francis Jammes, Diane
• Pierre Jean Jouve, Les Noces
• Alphonse Métérié, Nocturnes
• Benjamin Péret, Le grand jeu
• Pierre Reverdy, La Balle au bond
• Tristan Tzara, pen name of Sami Rosenstock, Indicateur des chemins de coeur

  Indian">Indian poetry">Indian subcontinent

• Cherian Mappila, also known as "Cheriyan Mappila", Shri Yesu Vijayam, long poem about the life of Jesus, India, Malayalam language; a poem on a Christian theme; called the first major contribution to Indian literature by a Christian poet
• Nalini Bala Devi, Sandhiyar Sur, Assamese
• Peer Ghulam Mohammad Hanafi, Bagh-O Bahar, tales in verse in the Kashmiri language, derived from Urdu tales
• Sri Sri, Prabhava, Telugu
• Vakil Ghulam Ahmad Shah Qureshi, Pani Gulzar, Kashmiri

  Spanish language

Spain">Spanish poetry">Spain

• Vicente Aleixandre, Ambito, the author's first book of poems
• Federico García Lorca, Primer romancero gitano
• Jorge Guillén, Cántico, first edition, with 75 poems in five sections

  Other in Spanish

• Martín Adan, La case de cartón, a novel in verse, Peru
• Nellie Campobello, Yo, Mexico
• José Varallanos, El hombre del Ande que asesinó su esperanza, Peru

  Other languages

• Nérée Beauchemin, Patrie intime, French language, Canada
• Uri Zvi Greenberg, Hazon Ehad Ha-Legionot, Hebrew language, Mandatory Palestine
• Aaro Hellaakoski, Jääpeili, Finland
• Stefan George, Das neue Reich, Germany
• Federico García Lorca, :es:Romancero gitano|Romancero gitano, Spain
• Eugenio Montale, Ossi di seppia, second edition, with six new poems and an introduction by Alfredo Gargiulo, Lanciano: Carabba, Italy
• Takahashi Shinkichi, Takahashi Shinkichi shishu, Tokyo: Nanso Shoin, Japan
• J. Slauerhoff, Eldorado, Dutch

  Awards and honors

• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Edwin Arlington Robinson wins his third Pulitzer Prize for Poetry this decade, this time for Tristram

  Births

• January 1 - Iain Crichton Smith, Scottish poet and fiction writer in both English and Scottish Gaelic
• January 10 - Philip Levine, American poet, educator and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
• January 29 - Gene Frumkin, American poet
• February 2 - Cynthia Macdonald, American poet
• February 14 - Bruce Beaver, Australian poet
• March 1 - Conrad Hilberry, American poet
• March 4 - Alan Sillitoe, English poet and writer and one of the "Angry Young Men" of the 1950s
• March 13 - Bob Brissenden, died 1991), Australian poet
• March 18 - Dave Etter, American poet
• March 28 - Vayalar Rama Varma, Indian, Malayalam-language poet and film songwriter
• April 4 - Maya Angelou, African-American poet
• April 7 - Gael Turnbull, Scottish poet
• April 26 - :de:Hertha Kräftner|Hertha Kräftner, Austrian poet
• May 4 - Thomas Kinsella, Irish poet, translator, editor and publisher
• May 11 - Luo Fu, Chinese-language Taiwanese poet, writer and translator
• June 27 - Peter Davison, American poet, essayist, teacher, lecturer, editor and publisher
• July 4 - Ted Joans African-American trumpeter, jazz poet and painter
• September 20
• * Alberto de Lacerda, Mozambique-born Portuguese poet
• * Donald Hall, American poet and U.S. Poet Laureate
• September 22
• * Irving Feldman, American poet and educator
• * Édouard Glissant, French-Martiniquan poet and writer.
• October 28 - Yu Guangzhong , Chinese writer, poet, educator and critic
• November 9 - Anne Sexton, American poet and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1967
• December 3 - Karin Bang, Norwegian novelist and poet
• December 10 - Milan Rufus, Slovak poet and academic
• December 15 - William Dickey, American poet
• December 23 - Anthony Cronin, Irish poet
• Also:
• * Carol Bergé, American poet
• * Rasa Chughtai, Indian-born Pakistani poet

  Deaths

• January 11 - Thomas Hardy, English novelist and poet
• February 5 - David McKee Wright, Irish-born poet and journalist, active in New Zealand and Australia
• February 19 - Ina Coolbrith, American poet, writer and librarian
• March 18 - Paul van Ostaijen, Belgian poet
• March 24 - Charlotte Mew, English poet, from suicide
• May 16 - Edmund Gosse, English poet and critic
• July 20 - Kostas Karyotakis, Greek poet
• August 16 - Antonín Sova, Czech poet and librarian
• September 17 - Bokusui Wakayama, 若山 牧水, Japanese "Naturalist" tanka poet
• December 16 - Elinor Wylie, American poet and novelist