1945 in poetry

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

Events

 * Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes, based on George Crabbe's The Borough
 * Vladimir Nabokov becomes a naturalized citizen of the United States
 * March 4 — Pablo Neruda elected a Communist party senator in Chile. He officially joined the Communist Party of Chile four months later.
 * April — Ilona Karmel and Henia Karmel, sisters from the Kraków Ghetto and together Polish Jewish prisoners of the Nazis, were on a forced death march when Germans in tanks crushed them and then shoved them, still living, into a mass grave. Soon after, a group of prisoners passed them, including a cousin of theirs. From their hiding place in her clothes, Henia Karmel ripped out some poems she and her sister had written and handed them to her cousin to give to her husband, Leon, back in Kraków. The cousin did deliver the poems, and the sisters were also saved by a nearby farmer who took them to a hospital. Henia wrote in 1947, "these poems are real, not just scribblings.[they] came about when I was still creating myself, experiencing the pain of separation. How I could have survived, you might ask? If so, sir, you know nothing of life. It lasted, that’s all." Henia wrote in her poem, "Snapshots": "My name is Number 906. / And guess what? I still write verse."
 * May 2, 1945, Ezra Pound was arrested by Italian partisans, and taken (according to Hugh Kenner) "to their HQ in Chiavari, where he was soon released as possessing no interest." The next day, he turned himself in to U.S. forces. He was incarcerated in a United States Army detention camp outside Pisa, spending 25 days in an open cage before being given a tent. Here he appears to have suffered a nervous breakdown. While in the camp he drafted the Pisan Cantos, a section of the work in progress which marks a shift in Pound's work, being a meditation on his own and Europe's ruin and on his place in the natural world. The Pisan Cantos won the first Bollingen Prize from the Library of Congress in 1948.
 * June — Australia's most celebrated literary hoax takes place when Angry Penguins is published with poems by the fictional Ern Malley. Poets James McAuley and Harold Stewart created the poems from lines of other poems and then sent them as the purported work of a recently deceased poet. The hoax was played on Max Harris, then a 22-year-old avant garde poet and critic who had started the modernist magazine, Angry Penguins. Harris and his circle of literary friends agreed that a hitherto completely unknown modernist poet of great merit had come to light in suburban Australia. The Autumn 1944 edition of the magazine with the poems came out in mid-1945 due to wartime printing delays. An Australian newspaper uncovered the hoax within weeks. McAuley and Stewart loved early Modernist poets but despised later modernism and especially the well-funded Angry Penguins and were jealous of Harris's precocious success.
 * Two small Canadian literary magazines, Preview and First Statement (each founded separately in 1942) combined to form Northern Review (which lasts until 1956).
 * Kyk-over-al magazine founded in Guyana

Works published in English
Listed by nation where the work was first published and again by the poet's native land, if different; substantially revised works listed separately:

Canada

 * Earle Birney, Now Is Time. Toronto: Ryerson Press. Governor General's Award 1945.
 * Arthur Bourinot, True Harvest.
 * Irving Layton, Here and Now
 * Anne Marriott, Sandstone and Other Poems, Toronto: Ryerson Press.
 * E.J. Pratt, They Are Returning, Toronto: Macmillan.
 * F.R. Scott. Overture. Toronto: Ryerson Press.
 * Elizabeth Smart, "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept" (prose poem)
 * Raymond Souster, When We Are Young. Montreal: First Statement.
 * Miriam Waddington, Green World

India, in English

 * Serapia Devi, The Book of Beneficent Grief and Other Poems ( Poetry in English ), Lahore: R. S. Ram Jawaya Kapur
 * B. Rajan, Monsoon ( Poetry in English ),
 * Subho Tagore, May Day and Other Poems ( Poetry in English ), Calcutta: Book Emporium
 * V.N. Bhushan, editor, The Peacock Lute: An Anthology of Poems in English by Indian Writers, Bombay: Padma Pub., 155 pages

United Kingdom

 * W.H. Auden, English poet living in the United States
 * Collected Poems
 * For the Time Being
 * John Betjeman, New Bats in Old Belfries
 * Walter de la Mare, The Burning-Glass, and Other Poems
 * W.S. Graham, Second Poems
 * Michael Hamburger, Later Hogarth
 * A.P. Herbert, Light the Lights
 * Philip Larkin, The North Ship, London: Dent
 * Alun Lewis, Ha! Ha! Among the Trumpets, foreword by Robert Graves; posthumously published
 * Ruth Pitter, The Bridge
 * William Plomer, The Dorking Thigh, and Other Satires
 * F.T. Prince, Soldiers Bathing, and Other Poems
 * Henry Treece, The Black Seasons
 * Vernon Watkins, The Lamp and the Veil

United States

 * W.H. Auden, The Collected Poetry, English poet living in the United States
 * John Malcolm Brinnin, No Arch, No Triumph
 * Gwendolyn Brooks, A Street in Bronzeville
 * Emily Dickinson, Bolts of Melody, published posthumously
 * H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), "Tribute to the Angels", second part of Trilogy (1944–46) about the experience of the Blitz in wartime London
 * Randall Jarrell, Little Friend, Little Friend, including "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner", New York: Dial Press
 * William Ellery Leonard, A Man Against Time, published posthumously
 * Ogden Nash, Many Long Years Ago
 * John Crowe Ransom, Selected Poems
 * Karl Shapiro, Essay on Rime
 * Wallace Stevens, Esthetique du Mal, Cummington Press

Other in English

 * George Campbell (poet), First Poems, Caribbean
 * Allen Curnow, editor, A Book of New Zealand Verse 1923–45 (Caxton), New Zealander
 * Denis Glover, The Wind and the Sand, New Zealander
 * Kenneth Slessor, Australian Poetry, anthology, Australia

France

 * Louis Aragon:
 * La Diane française
 * Le Nouveau Crevecoeur, about the Resistance
 * René Char, Seuls demeurent
 * Paul Claudel, Visages radieux
 * Max Jacob, Derniers Poemès, published posthumously (died 1944)
 * Pierre Jean Jouve:
 * Trois Poèmes aux Démons, Porrentruy: Portes de France
 * La Vierge de Paris
 * Henri Michaux, Épreuves, exorcismes
 * Saint-John Perse, Exil, suivi de Poème à l'étrangère; Pluies; Neiges Paris: Gallimard (a republication of Quatre poèmes, 1941-1944, Buenos Aires: Les Editions Lettres Françaises 1944), France
 * Jacques Prévert, Spectacles
 * Pierre Reverdy, Plupart du temps: poèmes 1915–1922
 * Georges Schéhadé, Chants d'ombre

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:

Kashmiri

 * Abdul Ahad Azad, Daryav, the author's magnum opus, on the theme of political revolution
 * Mahjoor:
 * Kalam-e Mahjoor (No. 9), lyrics on love
 * Payem-e Mahjoor (No. 2 and No. 3), in the Devangari script; on social and national themes

Malayalam

 * G. Sankara Kurup, Nimisam
 * Pappukkutti Kotamangalam, Katattuvanci, one of the first poetry books of the progressive movement in Malayalam literature
 * V. A. Anandakkuttan, Aradhana

Other Indian languages

 * Desikavinayagam Pillai, translator, Umarkayyam Patalkar, translation into Tamil of Edward Fitzgerald's English translation of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat
 * Devakanta Barua, Sagar dekhisa ; Assamese-language
 * Devarakonda Balagangadhara Tilak, Prabhatamu-Sandhya; Telugu-language
 * Dinu Bhai Pant, Guttalum, seven poems, including two lengthy ones, Dogri
 * E. V. R. Namputiri, translator, Mahakavih Krtyah, translation into Sanskrit from the Malayalam poems of Ulloor
 * Firak, Urdu Ki 'ishqiyah sha'iri, a major Urdu poet's literary criticism in Urdu on the idea of love as expressed in that language's poetry
 * Gopal Prasad Rimal, Masan ("The Crematorium"); Nepali-language
 * Gurnam Singh Tir, Hasdi Dunia; Punjabi
 * Laksmiprasad Devkota, Sakuntal, the first epic poem in the Nepali language, 24 cantos in Sanskrit Varnik meters, and the diction is very "Sanskritized"
 * P. V. Krishnan Nair, translator, Madirotsava, translation into Sanskrit of Edward Fitzgerald's English translation of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat
 * Trilochan, Dharti, Hindi-language pragativadi poems largely on man's struggles and life's contraditions
 * V. R. M. Chettiyar, translator, Kitancali, translation into Tamil from the Indian poetry in English of Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali

Other languages

 * Mario Benedetti, La víspera indeleble ("Indelible Eve"), his first published book, Uruguay
 * Eugenio Montale, Finisterre, a chapbook of poetry; second edition; Florence: Barbèra (first edition published in 1943 after a manuscript was smuggled into Switzerland ); Italy
 * Leopoldo Panero, Versos del Guadarrama ("Verses of Guadarrama"); Spain

Awards

 * Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (later the post would be called "Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress"): Louise Bogan appointed this year. She would serve until sometime in 1946.
 * Pulitzer Prize for poetry: Karl Shapiro, V-Letter and Other Poems
 * Governor General's Award, poetry or drama: Now is Time, Earle Birney (Canada)

Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * February 2 – Yoshihiko Funazaki 舟崎 克彦, Japanese novelist, poet, illustrator, manga writer, songwriter, and academic (surname: Funazaki)
 * February 23 – Robert Gray, Australian
 * April 2 – Anne Waldman, American
 * April 30 – Annie Dillard, American poet and 1975 Pulitzer Prize winner
 * May 6 – Calvin Forbes, African-American poet
 * June 7 – Falguni Ray (died 1981), Bengali poet and youngest member of Hungryalism movement
 * June 21 – Adam Zagajewski Polish poet, novelist, and essayist
 * July 7 – Ikezawa Natsuki 池澤夏樹, Japanese novelist, essayist, translator and poet who stopped publishing poetry in 1982 (surname: Ikezawa)
 * July 21 – Wendy Cope, English
 * August 13 – Tom Wayman, Canadian poet and academic
 * August 31 – Van Morrison, OBE, Irish poet, singer, songwriter, author, and musician
 * Also:
 * Terry Blackhawk
 * Marianne Bluger
 * Syl Cheyney-Coker
 * Dick Davis (poet)
 * W. S. Di Piero
 * Norman Dubie, American
 * Ellen Jaffe
 * Bernadette Mayer, American
 * J.D. McClatchy, gay American poet, literary critic, and editor of the Yale Review.
 * Carol Muske-Dukes, American
 * Alice Notley, American
 * Carolyn M. Rodgers, American
 * Ira Sadoff, American poet and academic
 * Leon Stokesbury, American
 * Clive Wilmer, English poet and academic

Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * January 15 — Ursula Bethell, New Zealand
 * January 22 — Else Lasker-Schuler, 75, poet
 * February 16 – Yun Dong-ju, (born 1917), Korean poet, died in a Japanese prison (surname: Yoon; also spelled "Yoon Dong-joo" and "Yun Tong-ju")
 * March 20 — Lord Alfred Douglas, poet and former lover of Oscar Wilde
 * May 15 — Charles Williams, British writer and poet, and a member of the loose literary circle called the Inklings
 * June 8 — Robert Desnos (born 1900), French surrealist poet and journalist, who was arrested by the Gestapo as a member of The Resistance, sent to Buchenwald in 1944, and died after he was liberated from the German concentration camp in Terezine, Czechoslovakia
 * July 20 — Paul Valéry (born 1871), French philosopher, author and Symbolist poet
 * August 26 — Franz Werfel (born 1890), Austrian-Bohemian novelist, playwright, and poet who wrote in German
 * December 14 — Maurice Baring, versatile English man of letters: a dramatist, poet, novelist, translator, essayist, travel writer, and war correspondent
 * Also:
 * Swami Ananda Acharya (born 1881), Indian poet who wrote Indian poetry in English
 * Capel Boake