1942 in poetry

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

Events

 * George Oppen forces his induction into the U.S. Army.
 * Preview, a small literary magazine, is founded in Canada (merged with First Statement in 1945 to form Northern Review, which lasted until 1956). It was published by F. R. Scott, A. J. M. Smith, A. M. Klein and P. K. Page, led by Patrick Andeson, an English poet and travel writer.
 * First Statement, a mimeographed, small literary magazine, is founded in Canada (merged with Preview in 1945). It was published by John Sutherland; Irving Layton and Louis Dudek were also involved.
 * Bim magazine founded in Barbados
 * French poet André Breton delivers a lecture titled "Situation du surealisme entre les deux guerres" at Yale University

Works published
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, David and Other Poems, the title piece, David, a long, narrative poem, was one of the most frequently taught poems in Canadian schools for decades Governor General's Award, 1942.
 * Arthur Bourinot, Canada at Dieppe.
 * Ralph Gustafson ed., Anthology of Canadian Poetry, including work by F. R. Scott, A. M. Klein, A. J. M. Smith, Leo Kennedy, E. J. Pratt, Finch, Dorothy Livesay, P. K. Page and Earle Birney; Penguin
 * Anne Marriott, Salt Marsh, Toronto: Ryerson Press.

Indian poetry in English

 * Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems and Plays ( Poetry & Plays in English ), in two volumes, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram
 * Raul De Loyola Furtado, also known as Joseph Furtado, Selected Poems ( Poetry in English ), Bombay: published by the author in a limited edition of 100 copies (second edition, revised 1947; third edition, revised 1967)
 * P.R. Kaikini, The Snake in the Moon ( Poetry in English ), Bombay: New Book Co.
 * Poetry in War Time ( Poetry in English ), London: Faber and Faber; anthology; Indian poetry, published in the United Kingdom
 * Manjeri Sundaraman, Penumbra

United Kingdom

 * Walter De la Mare, Collected Poems
 * T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding, long poem published in New English Weekly
 * Roy Fuller, The Middle of a War
 * W.S. Graham, Cage Without Grievance
 * John Heath-Stubbs, Wounded Thammuz
 * J.F. Hendry, The Bombed Happiness
 * Patrick Kavanagh, The Great Hunger
 * Sidney Keyes, The Iron Laurel
 * Alun Lewis, Raiders' Dawn, and Other Poems, on a soldier's life in the World War II
 * Robert Nichols, Such Was My Singing
 * Leslie Norris, Tongue of Beauty
 * Poetry in War Time, London: Faber and Faber; anthology; Indian poetry in English, published in the United Kingdom
 * John Pudney, Dispersal Point, and Other Air Poems, including "For Johnny"
 * Henry Reed, "The Naming of Parts", published in the New Statesman
 * Stevie Smith, Mother, What is Man?
 * Stephen Spender, Ruins and Visions
 * Dorothy Wellesley, Lost Planet, and Other Poems

United States

 * Conrad Aiken, Brownstone Eclogues
 * Stephen Vincent Benet, They Burned the Books
 * John Berryman, Poems
 * R. P. Blackmur, The Second World
 * John Malcolm Brinnin:
 * The Garden Is Political
 * The Lincoln Lyrics
 * Malcolm Cowley, A Dry Season
 * Robert Frost, A Witness Tree
 * Langston Hughes, Shakespeare in Harlem
 * Randall Jarrell, Blood for a Stranger
 * Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Murder of Lidice
 * Kenneth Patchen, The Teeth of the Lion
 * Muriel Rukeyser, Wake Island
 * Karl Shapiro:
 * Person, Place and Thing
 * The Place of Love
 * Wallace Stevens:
 * Parts of a World, includes "The Poems of Our Climate," "The Well Dressed Man with a Beard," and "Examination of the Hero in a Time of War", Knopf
 * Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction, Cummington Press
 * Mark Van Doren, Our Lady Peace
 * Margaret Walker, For My People
 * Robert Penn Warren, Eleven Poems on the Same Theme
 * Edmund Wilson, Notebooks of Night

Other in English

 * Louise Bennett, Dialect Verses, Caribbean

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

France

 * Louis Aragon, Les Yeux d'Elsa
 * Rene-Guy Cadou:
 * Bruits du coeur
 * Lilas du soir''
 * Paul Claudel, Cent phrases pour éventails
 * Robert Desnos, Fortunes
 * Paul Éluard, pen name of Paul-Eugène Grindel:
 * Le livre ouvert
 * Poésie et Vérité
 * Pierre Emmanuel, pen name of Noël Mathieu,
 * Cantos
 * Jour de colère
 * Léon-Paul Fargue, Refuges
 * Jean Follain, Canisy
 * Eugene Guilleveic, Terraqué
 * Loys Masson, Déliverez-nous du mal, war poems
 * Alphonse Métérié, Prix Lasserre
 * Henri Michaux, Au pays de la magie
 * Saint-John Perse, pen name of Alexis Saint-Léger Léger, Exil
 * Francis Ponge, Le parti pris des choses, 32 short to medium-length prose poems
 * Raymond Queneau, Pierrot mon ami
 * Jean Tortel, De mon vivant

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:

Bengali

 * Birendra Chattopadhyay, Grahacyta
 * Dinesh Das, Kabita 1343–48
 * Jibanananda Das, Banalata Sen

Other Indian languages

 * Akhtar Ansari Akbarabadi, Abgine, Urdu
 * Hari Daryani, Koda, Sindhi-language (India)
 * K. S. Narasimha Swami, Mysuru Malige, Indian, Kannada-language, called "the most famous collection of love poems in Kannada"
 * N. Gopla Pillai, Sita-Vicara-Lahari, translation into Sanskrit from the Malayalam of Kumaran Asan's poem Cintavistayaya Sita
 * Pritam Singh Safir, Pap de Sohle, Indian, Punjabi-language
 * Sumitra Kumari Sinha, ' 'Asa Parva' ', Hindi-language (India)

Other languages

 * Erik Lindegren, Manen utan väg ("The Man Without a Way"), Sweden
 * Cesare Pavese, Lavorare stanca ("Hard Work"), expanded version nearly double the size of the first edition published in 1936; Italy
 * César Moro, pen name of César Quíspez Asín, La tortuga ecuestre, Peru
 * Saint-John Perse, Exil: poème, Marseilles: Editions Cahiers du Sud; France
 * Francis Ponge, Le parti pris des choses, Gallimard; France

Awards and honors

 * Governor General's Award, poetry or drama: David and Other Poems, Earle Birney (Canada)

United States

 * Frost Medal: Edgar Lee Masters
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: William Rose Benet, The Dust Which Is God

Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * February 23 – Haki R. Madhubuti (born "Don Luther Lee"), African-American poet, author and academic
 * March 13 – Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian poet and prose writer
 * March 23 – Ama Ata Aidoo Ghanaian author, poet and playwright
 * March 26 – Erica Jong, American author and poet
 * October 5 – Nick Piombino, American poet, essayist, and psychotherapist. Sometimes associated with Language poets, because of his frequent appearance in the seminal L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E magazine early in his poetic career
 * October 23 – Douglas Dunn, Scottish poet, academic and critic.
 * November 9 – Karin Kiwus, German
 * November 11 – William Matthews, American poet and essayist
 * December 16 – Peter Seaton, American poet associated with the Language poets
 * November 19 – Sharon Olds, American poet
 * December 9 – David Harsent, English poet and crime novelist
 * Also:
 * Gladys Cardiff, American poet and academic
 * Stuart Dybek, American poet and author
 * Mark DeFoe
 * Douglas Eaglesham Dunn
 * Ebon (poet) / Leo Thomas Hale / Ebon Dooley, African American
 * Jennifer Footman
 * Marilyn Hacker, American poet, critic, and reviewer
 * David Henderson, poet associated with the Umbra workshop and Black Arts Movement
 * Everett H. Hoagland III, African-American
 * Peter Klappert, American
 * Sydney Lea, American
 * Susan Ludvigson, American
 * Charles Martin, American poet, critic and translator
 * Pat Mora, female Mexican-American author and poet
 * Eilean Ni Chuilleanain, Irish poet
 * Arthur Nortje, South African poet (died 1970)
 * Henry S. Taylor, Pulitzer Prize-winning American
 * Tom Weatherly, American
 * Hugo Williams, English poet, journalist and travel writer

Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * January 4 – Joan Vincent Murray, 24, Canadian American poet
 * February 2 – Daniil Kharms, 36, early Soviet-era surrealist and absurdist poet, writer, dramatist, and founder of OBERIU poetry school, probably of starvation in his cell at a Leningrad asylum, after his arrest
 * March 28 – Miguel Hernández, Spanish poet
 * April 24 – Lucy Maud Montgomery, known as "L.M. Montgomery", a Canadian poet and author best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables
 * May 7 – William Baylebridge (born 1883), the pseudonym of Charles William Blocksidge, an Australian poet and short story writer
 * May 11 – Sakutarō Hagiwara 萩原 朔太郎 (born 1886), Taishō and early Showa period Japanese literary critic and free-verse poet called the "father of modern colloquial poetry in Japan" (surname: Hagiwara)
 * May 12 – Shaw Neilson, Australian poet
 * May 26 – Libero Bovio, Italian poet in the Neapolitan dialect
 * March 28 – Miguel Hernández, 31, Spanish poet, from tuberculosis in harsh conditions during his imprisonment in Spain
 * May 29 – Akiko Yosano 与謝野 晶子 pen-name of Yosano Shiyo (born 1878), late Meiji period, Taishō period and early Showa period Japanese poet, pioneering feminist, pacifist and social reformer; one of the most famous, and most controversial, post-classical woman poets of Japan (surname: Yosano)
 * November 2 – Hakushū Kitahara 北原 白秋, pen-name of Kitahara Ryūkichi 北原 隆吉 (born 1885), Taishō and Showa period Japanese tanka poet (surname: Kitahara)
 * December 23 – Konstantin Bal'mont, Russian poet
 * Also:
 * Jakob van Hoddis (born 1887), German
 * Sadakazu Fujii 藤井 貞和, Japanese poet and literary scholar (surname: Fujii)