1916 in poetry

We know their dream; enough To know they dreamed and are dead; And what if excess of love Bewildered them till they died? I write it out in a verse&mdash; MacDonagh and MacBride And Connolly and Pearse Now and in time to be, Wherever green is worn, Are changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.

-- Closing lines of "Easter 1916" by William Butler Yeats, first published this year

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

Events

 * March – Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky, who writes under the pen name "Guillaume Apollinaire", is wounded in the head by shell fragments while serving as a lieutenant in the infantry on the Western Front (World War I).
 * July 14 – At the first public soiree at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zürich) in Switzerland, Hugo Ball recites the first Dada manifesto (see text).
 * October 6 – By some accounts, the Dada movement in art, poetry and literature coalesced by this date at the cabaret, where Ball, Emmy Hennings, Tristan Tzara, Hans Arp, Richard Huelsenbeck, Sophie Täuber and others discussed art and put on performances expressing their disgust with World War I and the interests they believed inspired it.
 * When Wallace Stevens' job as a lawyer for a New York City insurance company is abolished as a result of mergers, he joins the home office of Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company and moves to Hartford, where he will remain for the rest of his life.

Canada

 * Bliss Carman, April Airs: A Book of New England Lyrics, Boston: Small, Maynard and Co.; Canadian poet published in the United States
 * Thomas O'Hagan, Songs of Heroic Days, Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart
 * Marjorie Pickthall, The Lamp of Poor Souls and Other Poems.
 * Duncan Campbell Scott, Lundy's Lane and Other Poems, including "The Height of Land"
 * Frederick George Scott, In the Battle Silences: Poems Written at the Front (Toronto: Musson)
 * Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Red Cross Man.

United Kingdom

 * Laurence Binyon, The Anvil, and Other Poems
 * Edmund Blunden, Pastorals
 * Elizabeth Daryush, Verses
 * W.H. Davies:
 * Child Lovers, and Other Poems
 * Collected Poems
 * Eleanor Farjeon, Nursery Rhymses of London Town
 * Robert Graves, Over the Brazier
 * Thomas Hardy, Selected Poems
 * Aldous Huxley, The Burning Wheel
 * D.H. Lawrence, Amores
 * Charlotte Mew, The Farmer's Bride
 * Edith Sitwell and Osbert Sitwell, Twentieth Century Harlequinade, and Other Poems
 * The first Wheels poetry anthology Wheels 1916 edited by the Sitwells.
 * Charles Hamilton Sorley, Marlborough and Other Poems (posthumous)
 * Rabindranath Tagore, Fruit Gathering lyrics translated by the author into English from the original Bengali (Indian poetry in English)
 * Edward Thomas, Six Poems, his first published poetry (under the pen name 'Edward Eastaway')
 * William Butler Yeats, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom:
 * Easter 1916
 * Responsibilities and Other Poems
 * Reveries Over Childhood and Youth
 * Some Imagist Poets second anthology

United States


From The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I&mdash;

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

-- last verse (lines 16-20)
 * Conrad Aiken:
 * Turns and Movies
 * The Jig of Forslin
 * James Branch Cabell, From the Hidden Way
 * Florence Earle Coates (1850–1927), Poems (collected edition in two volumes)
 * Hilda Doolittle (also known as "H.D."), Sea Garden
 * John Gould Fletcher, Goblins and Pagodas
 * Robert Frost, Mountain Interval, including "The Road Not Taken" and "Out, Out&mdash;"
 * Edgar A. Guest, A Heap o' Livin'
 * Robinson Jeffers, Californians
 * Sarah Orne Jewett, Verses, published posthumously (died 1909)



From Chicago by Carl Sandburg Hog Butcher for the World,

Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,

Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;

Stormy, husky, brawling,

City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have


 * seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring
 * the farm boys.

And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes it is


 * true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.

-- Lines 1-7
 * Alfred Kreymborg, Mushrooms
 * Amy Lowell, Men, Women and Ghosts
 * Edgar Lee Masters:
 * Songs and Satires
 * The Great Valley
 * Emanuel Morgan and Anne Knish, both pen names, Spectra: A Book of Poetic Experiments
 * James Oppenheim, War and Laughter
 * Josephine Preston Peabody, Harvest Moon
 * Ezra Pound, Lustra
 * Edward Arlington Robinson, The Man Against the Sky
 * Carl Sandburg, Chicago Poems, Holt, Rinehart and Winston; including "Chicago"
 * Alan Seeger, Poems

Other in English

 * C.J. Dennis, The Moods of Ginger Mick, Australia
 * N. C. Rai, An Indian Tale, a tale of rural life; Calcutta; India, Indian poetry in English
 * Rabindranath Tagore, Fruit Gathering lyrics translated by the author into English from the original Bengali; India, Indian poetry in English
 * William Butler Yeats, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom:
 * Easter 1916
 * Responsibilities and Other Poems
 * Reveries Over Childhood and Youth

France

 * Jean Cocteau, Discours du Grand Sommeil, a poem written after experience as a Red Cross ambulance driver at the Belgian front in World War I
 * Francis Jammes, Cinq prières pour le temps de la guerre, Paris: Librairie de l'Art catholique
 * Pierre Reverdy, La Lucarne ovale

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:
 * B. Tirumal, Angala jarmani-yuddha vivaranam, Sanskrit-language epic poem on World War I (India)
 * Kavikondala Venkata Rao, Vividha Kusumavali, Telugu-language (India), a collection of khandikas
 * Lalchand Amardinomal Jagatiani, Sunharo Sacal, Sindhi-language essays of criticism and biography on the life and work of Sachal Sarmast, a Sindhi poet (India)
 * Lekhnath Ponday, Rtuvicar, Nepali-language
 * Rabindranath Thakur, Balaka, Bengali-language (India)
 * Rayaprolu Subba Rao, editor, Andhravali, a Telugu-language anthology (India)

Other

 * José María Eguren, La canción de las figuras, Peru
 * Joseph Lenoir-Rolland, Poèmes épars, lyrics; French language; Canada
 * Antonio Machado, Campos de Castilla (revised edition), Spain

Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * January 10 – William Buchan, 3rd Baron Tweedsmuir, also known as "William Tweedsmuir" (died 2008), an English peer and author of novels, short stories, memoirs and verse
 * February 4 – Gavin Ewart (died 1995), English
 * June 14 – John Ciardi (died 1986), American poet, translator, and etymologist
 * June 25 – John Malcolm Brinnin (died 1998), American poet and literary critic
 * July 6 – Harold Norse, (died 2009), American poet and memoirist. Wrote seminal memoir of the Beat poets in Paris.
 * October 16 – David Gascoyne, English author and poet
 * September 13 – John Malcolm Brinnin (died 1998), American poet and literary critic
 * September 25 – Paul Roche (died 2007), English poet, translator and academic once associated with the Bloomsbury Group
 * November 23 – P. K. Page (died 2010), Canadian poet
 * December 14 – Harold Stewart (died 1995), Australian
 * December 21 – Maurice Chappaz (died 2009), Swiss, French-language poet, travel writer, translator and author
 * Also
 * Ghulam Nabi Aziz (died 1965), Indian, Kashmiri-language poet, nephew of Abdul Ahad Azad
 * Jnanindra Barma (died 1990), Indian, Oriya-language poet
 * Hari Daryani, "Dilgir", Indian, Sindhi-language poet
 * Balumukund Dave, Indian, Gujarati-language poet
 * Ghulam Nabi Dilsoz (died 1941), Indian, Kashmiri-language poet
 * Helen Haenke (died 1978), Australian
 * Margaret Irvin, Australian
 * Sheikh Davud Kavi, Indian, Telugu-language poet, scholar and translator
 * Sankeevani Marathi, Indian, Marathi-language
 * Dina Nath Kaul Nadim (died 1987, Indian, Kashmiri-language poet
 * Felix Paul Noronha, Indian, Marathi-language poet in the Konkani dialect
 * Lal Chand Prarthi (died 1982), Indian, Dogri-language Pahadi poet and editor
 * Samar Sen, সমর সেন (died 1987) Bengali poet and journalist
 * Pinakin Thakore, Indian, Gujarati-language poet
 * Pritam Singh Safir, Indian, Punjabi-language poet
 * Raghunath Vishnu Pandit (died 1990), Indian, Konkani language poet who also wrote in Marathi modernist poet, novelist, short-story writer and essayist
 * Venibhai Purohit (died 1990), Indian, Gujarati-language
 * Val Vallis, Australian
 * Takis Varvitsiotis, Greek
 * N. V. Krishna Warrier, N. V. Krishna Warrier (died 1989), Indian, Malayalam-language poet, critic and scholar who introduced new types of long narrative poems and satires; editor of ' 'Mathrubhumi' ', a weekly; director of the Kerala Bhasa Institute
 * N. V. Krishna Warrier, N. V. Krishna Warrier (died 1989), Indian, Malayalam-language poet, critic and scholar who introduced new types of long narrative poems and satires; editor of ' 'Mathrubhumi' ', a weekly; director of the Kerala Bhasa Institute

Deaths
Note "Killed in World War I" subsection, below. Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * April 26 – Mário de Sá-Carneiro, novelist and poet
 * October 7 – James Whitcomb Riley, poet
 * October 25 – John Todhunter, 76, Irish poet and playwright
 * November 27 – Emile Verhaeren, Symbolist poet
 * December 9 – Natsume Sōseki 夏目 漱石 (commonly referred to as "Sōseki"), pen name of Natsume Kinnosuke 夏目金之助 (born 1867), Japanese Meiji Era novelist, haiku poet, composer of Chinese-style poetry, writer of fairy tales and a scholar of English literature; from 1984–2004, his portrait was on the 1000 yen note
 * Also
 * Sacchidananda Tribhuban Deb (born 1872), Indian, Oriya-language poet and patron of Oriya literature; king of Bamanda, a feudal state in Sambalpur District
 * Olindo Guerrini
 * Petar Kočić
 * Arabella Eugenia Smith
 * John Townsend Trowbridge, American poet and author
 * William Little (Australian poet) (born 1839), Australian
 * Asad Pare, Indian, Kashmiri-language, Sufi
 * Sacchindananda Tribhuban Deb (born 1872), Indian, Oriya-language poet and king of Bamanda, a feudal state in Sambalpur District; patron of Oriya writers
 * Sacchindananda Tribhuban Deb (born 1872), Indian, Oriya-language poet and king of Bamanda, a feudal state in Sambalpur District; patron of Oriya writers

Killed in World War I

 * May 31 – Gorch Fock, poet and novelist
 * July 1 – Gilbert Waterhouse, war poet killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme while serving as a second lieutenant in the 2nd Bn Essex Regiment.
 * July 4 – Alan Seeger, 38, American poet who joined the French Foreign Legion in 1914 and died in battle, cheering on his fellow soldiers after he was hit; uncle of American folk singer Pete Seeger
 * July 30 – Joyce Kilmer, American poet, killed by a sniper in the Second Battle of the Marne in France
 * September 22 – Edward Wyndham Tennant, war poet
 * November 14 – H. H. Munro ("Saki"), 45, English poet, short story writer, novelist and playwright

Awards and honors

 * Nobel Prize for Literature: Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam Swedish poet and novelist