1931 in poetry

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).

Events

 * Louis Zukofsky edits the February issue of Poetry magazine. The issue eventually will be recognized as the founding document of the Objectivist poets. It features poetry by Zukofsky, Charles Reznikoff, Carl Rakosi, George Oppen, Basil Bunting, William Carlos Williams, Kenneth Rexroth, and many others. Also in the issue: Zukofsky's essay "Sincerity and Objectification".
 * George Oppen and his wife, Mary Oppen found To Publishers in Le Beausset, France; Louis Zukofsky is editor.
 * Beacon magazine founded in Trinidad (lasts until 1933)

Canada

 * Wilson MacDonald, A Flagon Of Beauty. Toronto: Pine Tree Publishing.
 * Marjorie Pickthall, The Naiad and Five Other Poems] (Toronto: Ryerson)

India, in English

 * A.R. Chida, editor, An Anthology of Indo-Anglian Verse with an Introductory Note to Each Set of Selections, Hyderabad: A. R. Chida, 113 pages; anthology; Indian poetry in English

United Kingdom

 * John Betjeman, Mount Zion; or, In Touch with the Infinite
 * Laurence Binyon, Collected Poems
 * Edmund Blunden:
 * Themis
 * publishes Wilfred Owen's poems
 * Robert Bridges, Shorter Poems
 * Roy Campbell, The Georgiad, a satire openly attacking the Bloomsbury Group; a South African native published in the United Kingdom
 * C. Day Lewis, From Feathers to Iron
 * T. S. Eliot:
 * Coriolan
 * Triumphal March
 * Robert Graves, Poems 1926–1930
 * Aldous Huxley:
 * The Cicadas, and Other Poems
 * The World of Light; A comedy, a verse drama performed March 30
 * John Lehmann, A Garden Revisited, and Other Poems
 * AE, pen name of George William Russell, Vale, and Other Poems
 * Osbert Sitwell, The Collected Satires and Poems
 * William Soutar, Conflict
 * Arthur Symons, Jezbel Mort, and Other Poems (sic)
 * Humbert Wolfe, Snow

United States

 * Franklin P. Adams, Christopher Columbus
 * Conrad Aiken:
 * The Coming Forth by Day of Osris Jones
 * Preludes for Memnon
 * E. E. Cummings, W (ViVa)
 * Hilda Doolittle (H.D.), Red Roses for Bronze
 * Langston Hughes, The Negro Mother
 * Edna St. Vincent Millay, Fatal Interview
 * Ogden Nash:
 * Free Wheeling
 * Hard Lines
 * Dorothy Parker, Death and Taxes
 * Edward Arlington Robinson, Mathias at the Door
 * Wallace Stevens, Harmonium, including "Le Monocle de Mon Oncle," "The Comedian as the Letter C" "The Emperor of Ice Cream," "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," "Peter Quince at the Clavier," "Sunday Morning," "Sea Surface Full of Clouds," and "In the Clear Season of Grapes"), Knopf, revised from the 1923 edition".
 * Mark Van Doren, Jonathan Gentry
 * Yvor Winters, The Journey

Other in English

 * Norman Cameron, Guianese Poetry: 1831–1931


 * Kenneth Slessor, Harley Matthews and Colin Simpson, Trio: A Book of Poems, Sydney: Sunnybrook Press, Australia

France

 * Guillaume Apollinaire, pen name of Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky, Le condor et le morpion, posthumously published (died 1918)
 * Louis Aragon:
 * Hourra l'Oural, influenced by the author's conversion to Marxism
 * Persécuté Persécuteur
 * André Breton, L'union libre
 * Francis Jammes, L'Arc-en-ciel des amours, Paris: Bloud et Gay
 * Pierre Jean Jouve, Les Noces
 * Tristan Tzara, pen name of Sami Rosenstock, L'Homme approximatif

Indian subcontinent
Including all of the British colonies that later became India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Listed alphabetically by first name, regardless of surname:


 * Atul Prasad Sen, Gitigunja, complete collection of songs by this Bengali poet and composer
 * Bal Krisna Rav, Kaumudi, Indian, Hindi-language
 * Bhagavadacharya, Mohanapancadhydyi, Sanskrit poem on Mahatma Gandhi
 * Chanda Jha, Candra Padyavali, edited by Baladev Mishra, Maithili
 * D. K. Kelkar, Kavyalocan, a treatise in Marathi on literary theory; discusses the nature of poetry, figures of speech, the nature of poetic pleasure and Indian literary concepts
 * K. V. Simon, Veda Viharam, long poem based on the book of Genesis; India, Malayalam language
 * Mahjoor, Nav Baharo Myani Locaro Ho, Kashmiri
 * Mayadhar Mansinha, Dhupa, poems in this collection remained very popular as of the mid 1990s; Oriya
 * Mohan Singh Diwana, Jagat Tamasa, Punjabi (a 1927 novel by Charan Singh Sahid has the same title)
 * Raja K. K., Baspanjali, Malayalam work by a poet of the Vallathol school
 * Siyaram Sharan Gupta, Atmostsarga, on the self-sacrifice of Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi in the cause of communal peace; Hindi
 * Tallapragada Visvasundaramma, Ratri, including many patriotic poems; Telugu
 * Umashankar Joshi, Vishwashanti, also spelled "Visvasanti" (Indian, writing in Gujarati)
 * V. Seetharamayya, Gitagalu, the author's first book of poetry, with navodaya lyrics more intellectual than most; Kannada

Spain

 * Federico García Lorca, Poema del cante jondo ("Poem of Deep Song")
 * Pedro Salinas, Fábula y signo ("Fable and Sign")
 * José Moreno Villa, Carambas

Latin America

 * Enrique Peña Barrenechea, Cinema de los sentidos puros, Peru

Other languages

 * Giorgos Seferis, Στροφή ("Strophe") (Greece)

Awards and honors

 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Robert Frost: Collected Poems

Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * January 6 –
 * Juan Goytisolo, Spanish poet, essayist, and novelist
 * P. J. Kavanagh, English poet, lecturer, actor and broadcaster
 * January 14 – Ahmed Faraz, pseudonym of Syed Ahmad Shah (died 2008), Pakistani Urdu-language poet, son of Agha Syed Muhammad Shah Bark Kohati, a leading traditional poet
 * February 2 – Judith Viorst, American author known for her children's books and poetry
 * April 15 – Ruth Fainlight, Swedish poet, short story writer, translator and librettist
 * April 19 – Etheridge Knight, (died 1991), an African-American poet
 * May 16 – Peter Levi, (died 2000), professor of poetry at Oxford University and an English poet, Jesuit priest, archaeologist, travel writer, biographer, scholar, prolific reviewer and critic
 * May 27 – O. N. V. Kurup, Indian, Malayalam language
 * June 13 – Jay Macpherson, Canadian lyric poet and scholar; she is a member of the "mythopoeic school of poetry"
 * June 21 – Patricia Goedicke, poet
 * July 28 – Alan Brownjohn, English poet and novelist
 * December 15 – Shuntarō Tanikawa 谷川 俊太郎, Japanese poet and translator (surname: Tanikawa)


 * Also:
 * P'Bitek, African poet
 * Sonja Dunn
 * Makoto Ooka 大岡信, Japanese poet and literary critic
 * Tomas Tranströmer, Swedish writer, poet and translator

Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * March 16 – Harold Edward Monro, 54, British poet, the proprietor of the Poetry Bookshop in London
 * April 2 – Katharine Tynan, 70 (born 1861), Irish poet, novelist and writer who, after her marriage in 1898, usually wrote under the names "Katharine Tynan Hinkson", "Katharine Tynan-Hinkson" or "Katharine Hinkson-Tynan"
 * April 10 – Khalil Gibran, 48, poet artist, and writer born in Lebanon who spent much of his productive life in the United States
 * October 5 – Christopher Brennan, 61, Australian poet
 * December 5 – Vachel Lindsay (Nicholas Vachel Lindsay), 42 (born 1879, American poet and early advocate of jazz poetry, a suicide by poison


 * Also:
 * Gamaliel Bradford (poet)
 * Puran Singh (born 1881), Indian, writing Indian poetry in English