1938 in poetry

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

Events

 * In Nazi Germany, the Reichsschrifttumskammer (the National Socialist authors' association) banned German expressionist poet Gottfried Benn from further writing.

Australia

 * Rex Ingamells and Ian Tilbrook, Conditional Culture, published in Adelaide; a manifesto advocating a "fundamental break ... with the spirit of English culture" to free Australian art from "alien influences" and paying more attention to Aboriginal culture as well as the use of "only such imagery as is truly Australian"; the word "Jindyworobak", which they understood to be an Aboriginal term meaning 'to annex' or 'to join', they proposed as a symbol of the reorientation; the Jindyworobak movement resulted in at least 44 volumes of poetry and literary comment in addition to periodicals from this year through 1953; criticism, Australia
 * Rex Ingamells:
 * Sun-freedom, Adelaide
 * Editor, Jindyworobak Anthology, Adelaide
 * Shaw Neilson, Beauty Imposes: Some Recent Verse, Angus and Robertson.

Canada

 * Kenneth Leslie, By Stubborn Stars. Toronto: Ryerson. Governor-General's Award 1938.
 * L.A. MacKay, Viper's Bugloss.
 * Virna Sheard, Leaves in the Wind.
 * Arthur Stringer, The Old Woman Remembers and Other Irish Poems. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.

Indian poetry in English

 * Joseph Furtado, Songs in Exile ( Poetry in English ), Bombay: self-published
 * Cyril Modak, editor, The Indian Gateway to Poetry ( Poetry in English ),  Calcutta: Longmans, Green; anthology
 * K.S.R. Sastry, The Light of Life ( Poetry in English )

United Kingdom

 * Elizabeth Daryush, Verses: Sixth Book
 * Cecil Day Lewis, Overtures to Death, and Other Poems
 * Walter de la Mare, Memory, and Other Poems
 * David Gascoyne, Holderlin's Madness
 * Stella Gibbons, The Lowland Venus, and Other Poems
 * Oliver St. John Gogarty, Others to Adorn, preface by W. B. Yeats
 * Robert Graves, Collected Poems
 * Louis MacNeice:
 * The Earth Compels
 * I Crossed the Minch, prose, with verse
 * Stevie Smith, Tender Only to One
 * Charles Williams, Taliessen Through Logres
 * W.B. Yeats, New Poems, including "Lapis Lazuli", Irish poet published in the United Kingdom
 * Anthologies
 * Poems of Today, British poetry anthology, third series.

United States

 * Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren, editors, Understanding Poetry, criticism and anthology, (appearing thereafter in revised editions to 1976)
 * E.E. Cummings, Collected Poems
 * Donald Davidson, Lee in the Mountains
 * Kenneth Fearing, Dead Reckoning
 * John Gould Fletcher, Selected Poems
 * Archibald MacLeish, Land of the Free
 * Ogden Nash, I'm a Stranger Here Myself
 * Ezra Pound, Guide to Kulchur, dedicated "To Louis Zukofsky and Basil Bunting strugglers in the desert"
 * Frederic Prokosch, The Carnival
 * Laura Riding, Collected Poems
 * Muriel Rukeyser, U.S. 1
 * Delmore Schwartz, In Dreams Begin Responsibilities
 * E. B. White, The Fox of Peapack
 * William Carlos Williams, The Complete Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, 1906-1938, New Directions

Other in English

 * Robin Hyde, New Zealand:
 * Nor the Years Condemn
 * The Godwits Fly
 * W.B. Yeats, New Poems, including "Lapis Lazuli", Irish poet published in the United Kingdom

France

 * Paul Éluard, pen name of Paul-Eugène Grindel, Cours naturel
 * Pierre Emmanuel, pen name of Noël Mathieu, Christ au tombeau, the author's first poem
 * Luc Estang, Au-delà de moi-même
 * Pierre Jean Jouve, Kyrie
 * Jules Supervielle, La Fable du monde

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:
 * Ajit Kumar Datta, Patal Kanya, Bengali
 * Bharatidasan, Paratitacan Kavitakal, Tamil
 * Daya Singh Arif, Zindagi Bilas, a long poem, Punjabi
 * Sir Muhammad Iqbal, Armaghan-i-Hijaz ("Gift from Hijaz"), philosophical poetry book in Persian
 * Rabindranath Tagore, Prantik, Bengali
 * Ramnarayan Vishvanath Pathak, Gujarati:
 * Sesnan Kavyo, 73 Gujarati poems, including sonnets, bhajans and muktaks
 * Arvacin Kavyasahityanan Vaheno, five lectures on modern Gujarati poetry
 * Rayaprolu Subba Rao, Ramyalokam, this verse work in Telugu "is accepted as the manifesto of bhava kavita (romantic poetry)", according to academic Siser Kumar Das
 * Sacchidananda Rout Roy, Baji Raut ("The Boatman Boy"), Indian, Oriya-language
 * Sumitranandan Pant, Yugvani, Hindi
 * Ubaidullah Mahshar and Ashfaq Husain Khan Gaurakhpuri, Yadgar-i Mahshar, Urdu

Other languages

 * Nathan Alterman, Stars Outside, Israel
 * Nikos Kazantzakis, The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel, Greek
 * Gabriela Mistral, Tala ("Harvesting" ), Buenos Aires: Sur; Chilean poet published in Argentina
 * María Pemán, Poema de la bestia y el angel ("Poem of the Beast and the Angel"); Spain
 * Emil Staiger, Die Zeit als Einbildungskraft des Dichters, Germany (scholarship)

Awards and honors

 * Hawthornden Prize - David Jones for In Parenthesis
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Marya Zaturenska: Cold Morning Sky
 * Governor General's Award, poetry or drama: By Stubborn Stars, Kenneth Leslie

Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * February 22 – Ishmael Reed, American poet, essayist and novelist
 * March 18 – Michael S. Harper, African American
 * March 24 – Ian Hamilton (died 2001), English literary critic, reviewer, biographer, poet, magazine editor and publisher
 * April 18 – Jwalamukhi జ్వాలాముఖీ, pen name of Veeravalli Raghavacharyulu (died 2008), Indian, Telugu-language poet, novelist, writer and political activist
 * May 9 – Charles Simic, American
 * May 25 – Raymond Carver (died in 1988), American short-story writer and poet
 * June 13 – John Newlove (died in 2003), Canadian
 * July 19 – Dom Moraes (died in 2004), Indian writer, poet and columnist
 * Also:
 * Betty Adcock, American
 * Tajal Bewas, pen name of Taj Mohammed Samoo, 70 (died 2008), bucolic Sufi poet, novelist, short-story writer, teacher and Pakistani government official
 * Peter Dale, English poet and translator
 * Elke Erb, German
 * Julia Fields, African American
 * Brendan Galvin, American
 * Frances Horovitz English poet, broadcaster and performer of poetry.
 * Keroapetse Kgositsile
 * Deena Linett
 * Leslie Allan Murray
 * Nabaneeta Dev Sen (Bengali) writer and poet
 * Robert Phillips (poet), American poet and academic
 * Tom Raworth, English poet and visual artist; influential figure in the British Poetry Revival movement
 * George Thaniel
 * Askia Muhammad Toure, African American
 * Sansei Yamao (died 2001), Japanese poet and friend of American poet Gary Snyder

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


 * March 1 – Gabriele D'Annunzio, Italian poet, writer, novelist, dramatist, daredevil
 * April 15 – César Vallejo, Peruvian poet
 * April 19 – Sir Henry Newbolt, English author and poet
 * April 21 – Sir Muhammad Iqbal (aka "Allama Iqbal" [Urdu], and "Iqbal-e-Lahori" [Persian]) 70, Indian Muslim poet, philosopher and politician, who wrote in Persian and Urdu, and praised as Muffakir-e-Pakistan ("The Thinker of Pakistan"), Shair-i-Mashriq ("The Poet of the East"), and Hakeem-ul-Ummat ("The Sage of Ummah"); his birthday is annually commemorated in Pakistan as "Iqbal Day", a national holiday
 * June 26 – James Weldon Johnson African-American author, poet, early civil rights activist, and prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance, best known for his writing, including novels, poems, and collections of folklore
 * October 5 – Chieko Takamura (born 1886), Japanese (surname: Takamura)
 * October 27 – Lascelles Abercrombie, British poet and literary critic, one of the "Dymock poets".
 * December 7 – Osip Mandelstam, Russian poet, essayist and one of the foremost members of the Acmeist school of poets.