1970 in poetry

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

Events

 * May – "La nuit de la poÃ©sie", a poetry reading in Montreal bringing together poets from French Canada to recite before an audience of more than 2,000 in the ThÃ©Ã¢tre du Gesu, lasting until 7 a.m.
 * Release of Tomfoolery, an animated film directed by Joy Batchelor and John Halas, based on the nonsense verse of Edward Lear (especially "The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo") and Lewis Carroll
 * First issue of Tapia (later named the Trinidad & Tobago Review) published
 * In the United Kingdom, "My Enemies Have Sweet Voices", a poem by Pete Morgan, is set to music by Al Stewart and included in his "Zero She Flies" album this year.

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:

Australia

 * Robert Adamson Canticles on the Skin
 * B. Elliott and A. Mitchell, Bards in the Wilderness: Australian Colonial Poetry to 1920, anthology
 * John Tranter, Parallax, South Head Press

Canada

 * Earle Birney, Rag & Bone Shop. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart).
 * Fred Cogswell, In Praise of Chastity.
 * Joan Finnigan, It Was Warm and Sunny When We Set Out
 * Gail Fox, Dangerous Season
 * Robert A.D. Ford, The Solitary City, his poems and translations from Russian and Portuguese
 * Goodridge MacDonald, Selected Poems.
 * Michael Ondaatje:
 * The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left-handed Poems (adapted by Ondaatje into a play of the same name in 1973), Toronto: Anansi ISBN 0-88784-018-3 ; New York: Berkeley, 1975
 * Leonard Cohen (literary criticism), Toronto: McClelland & Stewart
 * Joe Rosenblatt, Bumblebee Dithyramb.
 * Anthologies
 * Robert Evans, editor, Song to a Seagull, collected Canadian songs and poems
 * John Glassco, editor, The Poetry of French Canada in Translation, translated by English-speaking poets, including E.J. Pratt, Al Purdy, Leonard Cohen; and poetic lyrics from recent songs
 * Raymond Souster and Douglas Lochhead, eds. New Poems of the Seventies. Ottawa: Oberon Press.
 * Raymond Souster and Douglas Lochhead, eds. Made in Canada. Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1970.
 * Raymond Souster and Richard Woollatt, eds. Generation Now. Longman Canada.

Indian poetry in English

 * Shiv Kumar, Articulate Silences ( Poetry in English ), Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India.
 * Keki N. Daruwalla, Under Orion ( Poetry in English ), Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India . also New Delhi: Harper Collins Publishers India Pvt Ltd.;
 * Sukanta Chaudhuri, The Glass King and Other Poems ( Poetry in English ), Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India.
 * Gauri Deshpande, Lost Love ( Poetry in English ) ,
 * Suniti Namjoshi, More Poems( Poetry in English ) ,
 * Roshen Alkazi, Seventeen More Poems ( Poetry in English ), Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India . (see also Seventeen Poems 1965)
 * Margaret Chatterjee, Towards the Sun ( Poetry in English ), Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India.
 * Mary Ann Das Gupta, The Peacock Smiles ( Poetry in English ), Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India.
 * N. Prasad, Iconography of Time, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India.
 * Monika Varma, Green Leaves & Gold ( Poetry in English ), Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India.

Ireland

 * Seamus Heaney, Northern Ireland poet published in the United Kingdom:
 * Night Drive, Gilbertson
 * A Boy Driving His Father to Confession, Sceptre Press
 * Derek Mahon, Beyond Howth Head, Northern Ireland poet published in the United Kingdom

New Zealand

 * James K. Baxter, Jerusalem Sonnets
 * Bill Manhire, Malady
 * F. McKay, New Zealand Poetry, scholarship
 * Vincent O'Sullivan, editor, An Anthology of Twentieth Century New Zealand Verse
 * J. E. Weir, The Poetry of James K. Baxter, a critical study

United Kingdom

 * Dannie Abse, Selected Poems
 * Margaret Atwood, The Journals of Susanna Moodie
 * George Barker, At Thurgarton Church
 * R. H. Bowden, Poems from Italy
 * Frederick Broadie, My Findings
 * Michael Dennis Browne, The Wife of Winter
 * Charles Causley, Figgie Hobbin
 * Donald Davie, Six Epistles to Eva Hesse
 * C. Day Lewis, The Whispering Roots
 * Patric Dickinson, More Than Time
 * Clifford Dyment, Collected Poems
 * D.J. Enright, Selected Poems
 * W.S. Graham, Malcolm Mooney's Land
 * Ian Hamilton, The Visit
 * Tony Harrison, The Loiners
 * Seamus Heaney, Northern Ireland poet published in the United Kingdom:
 * Night Drive, Gilbertson
 * A Boy Driving His Father to Confession, Sceptre Press
 * Glyn Hughes, Neighbours
 * Ted Hughes, A Crow Hymn
 * C. Day Lewis, The Whispering Roots
 * George MacBeth, The Burning Cone
 * Norman MacCaig, A Man in My Position
 * Hugh MacDiarmid, Selected Poems
 * Sorley MacLean, George Campbell Hay, William Neill and Stuart MacGregor, Four Points of a Saltire (includes some poems in Scottish Gaelic)
 * Derek Mahon, Beyond Howth Head Northern Ireland poet published in the United Kingdom
 * Walter de la Mare, The Complete Poems of Walter de la Mare
 * Stuart Montgomery, Circe
 * Brian Patten, The Homecoming
 * Christopher Pilling, Snakes and Girls, won the new Poets Award sponsored by Leeds university and the Yorkshire Post
 * Peter Porter, The Last of England
 * Burns Singer, Collected Poems (posthumous)
 * Iain Crichton Smith, Selected Poems
 * Charles Tomlinson, The Way of a World
 * John Wain, Letters to Five Artists
 * Ted Walker, The Night Bathers
 * Hugo Williams, Sugar Daddy
 * Mary Wilson (wife of Prime Minister Harold Wilson), Selected Poems, "easily the 'best selling'" poetry book of the year.
 * Anthologies in the United Kingdom
 * Alan Bold, editor, The Penguin Book of Socialist Verse
 * Peter Robins, editor, Doves for the Seventies
 * Edward Lucie-Smith, editor, British Poetry since 1945, Penguin
 * F.E.S. Finn, editor, Poems of the Sixties
 * Howard Sergeant, editor, Poetry of the 1940s

United States

 * A.R. Ammons, Uplands
 * John Ashbery, The Double Dream of Spring
 * Paul Blackburn:
 * The Assassination of President McKinley
 * Three Dreams and an Old Poem
 * Gin: Four Journal Pieces
 * Louise Bogan, A Poet's Alphabet
 * Philip Booth, Margins
 * Stanley Burnshaw, The Seamless Web
 * Gwendolyn Brooks, Family Pictures
 * Raymond Carver, Winter Insomnia
 * Clark Coolidge, Space, Harper & Row
 * L. Sprague deCamp, Demons and Dinosaurs
 * James Dickey, The Eye-Beaters, Blood, Victory, Madness, Buckhead and Mercy
 * Ed Dorn:
 * Gunslinger I & II, Fulcrum Press
 * Songs Set Two: a Short Count, Frontier Press, ISBN 978-0-686-05052-0
 * Michael S. Harper, Dear John, Dear Coultrane, nominated for the National Book Award
 * John Hollander, Images of Voice, criticism
 * David Ignatow, Poems: 1934-1969
 * LeRoi Jones, It's Nation Time
 * Shirley Kaufman, the Floor Keeps Turning
 * Denise Levertov, Relearning the Alphabet
 * William Meredith, Earth Walk
 * W. S. Merwin:
 * The Carrier of Ladders, New York: Atheneum (awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1971)
 * Signs, with graphics by A. D. Moore; Iowa City, Iowa: Stone Wall Press
 * Lorine Niedecker, My Life by Water: Collected Poems, 1936-1968 (Fulcrum Press)
 * Michael Ondaatje, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid
 * Ezra Pound's Drafts and Fragments of Cantos CX to CXVII
 * Mark Strand, Darker, Canadian native living in and published in the United States
 * May Swenson, Iconographs
 * Mona Van Duyn, To See, To Take
 * Reed Whittemore, Fifty Poems Fifty
 * William Carlos Williams, Imaginations (posthumous)

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:

Arabic language

 * Nizar Qabbani, Syrian:
 * Savage Poems
 * Book of Love
 * 100 Love Letters

Denmark

 * Thorkild BjÃ¸rnvig, a book of "collected or selected works"
 * Regin Dahl, Ã†rinde uden betydning
 * Ivan Malinovski, a book of "collected or selected works"
 * Jess Ã˜rnsbo, a book of "collected or selected works"
 * Klaus Rifbjerg, Mytologi, Denmark

Canadian poetry in French

 * Gaston Miron, L'Homme RapaillÃ©
 * Yves PrÃ©fontaine:
 * DÃ©bÃ¢cle
 * Ã€ l'OrÃ©e des travaux
 * Fernand Dumont, Parler de septembre
 * Raoul Duguay, Manifeste de l'Infonie
 * Nicole Brossard, Suite logique
 * Louis-Philippe HÃ©bert, Les Mangeurs de terre

France

 * M. BÃ©alu, La Nuit nous garde
 * Alain Bosquet and Pierre Seghers, PoÃ¨mes de l'annÃ©e
 * L. Brauquier, Feux d'Ã©paves
 * Mohammed Dib, Formulaires
 * Emily Dickinson, PoÃ©sies complÃ¨tes, translated from the original English by Guy Jean Forgue; Aubier-Flammarion
 * Pierre Emmanuel, pen name of NoÃ«l Mathieu, Jacob
 * Andre Frenaud, Depuis toujours dÃ©ja
 * Eugene Guilleveic, Paroi
 * Michel Leiris, Mots sans mÃ©moire
 * C. Le Quintrec, La Marche des arbres
 * M. Manoll, Incarnada
 * J.L. Moreau, Sous le masque des mots
 * J. Tardieu, PoÃ¨mes Ã  jouer
 * Vandercammen, Horizon de la vigie

Germany

 * Paul Celan, Lichtzwang (Romanian, writing in German)

Hebrew

 * M. Temkin, Shirai Yerushalayim
 * A. Broides, Tahana ve-Derech
 * Z. Gilead, Or Hozer
 * Dan Pagis, Gilgul ("Transformations")
 * I. Shalev, Naar Shav Min ha-Tzava
 * Abba Kovner, Hupahba-Midbar
 * T. Carmi, Davar Ahed
 * Avot Yeshurun, Ze Shaim ha-Sefere

Italy

 * Carmelo Bene, Lorecchio mancante
 * Dino Buzzati, Poema a fumetti
 * Alfredo Giuliani, Il tautofono
 * Sandro Penna, Tutte le poesie
 * Nelo Risi, Di certe cose
 * Maria Luisa Spaziani, L'occhio del ciclone
 * Giovanni Testori, Erodiade

Norway

 * Rolf Jacobsen, Headlines
 * Stein Mehren, Aurora
 * Ragnvald Skrede, Lauvfall
 * Simen SkjÃ¸nsberg, Flyttedag
 * Tarjei Vesaas, Liv ved straumen (posthumous)

Brazil

 * Augusto de Campos, EquivocÃ¡bulos, collection of "semantic-visual texts, photo-poems, and 'Viagem via linguagem', a collapsible environment-poem resembling an architect's model"
 * Affonso Avila, CÃ³digo de Minas
 * Silviano Santiago, Salto

Russian

 * Andrei Voznesenski, The Shadow of Sound
 * Y. Smelyakov, December
 * Boris Slutski, Tales for Today
 * Evgeni Vinokurov, Shows
 * Leonid Martynov, Peoples' Names
 * Leonid Vasilyev, Ognevistsa
 * Evgeni Yevtushenko, a collection, including some new poems and omitting some "controversial earlier ones"

Spain

 * Jorge GuillÃ©n, Obra poÃ©tica
 * JosÃ© Caballero Bonald, Vivar para contarlo ("Live to Tell It"), including "Zauberlehrling"

Peru

 * Washington Delgado, Un mundo dividado
 * C.G. Belli, Sextinas
 * J.G. Rose, Informe al rey
 * M. Martos, Cuaderno de quejas y contentamientos
 * C. Bustamante, El nombre de las cosas

Elsewhere in Latin America

 * Julio CortÃ¡zar, Ãšltimo round, miscellany of stories, poems, essays and collage games (Argentina)
 * Alberto Girri, AntologÃ­a temÃ¡tica (Argentina)
 * Alberto Vanasco, Canto rodado (Argentina)
 * I. LÃ³pez Vallecillo, Puro asombro (El Salvador)
 * Ernesto Cardenal, Salmos (Nicaragua)
 * R. FernÃ¡ndez Retamar, Que veremos arder (Cuba)
 * Nicanor Parra, Obra gruesa (Chile)
 * Enrique Lihn, La musiquilla de las pobres esferas (Chile)

Sweden

 * Werner AspenstrÃ¶m, Inre ("Inner")
 * GÃ¶ren Sonnevi, Det MÃ¥ste gÃ¥ ("It Must Be Possible")
 * Maja EkelÃ¶f, Rapport frÃ¥n en skurhink ("Report from a Scrub Bucket")
 * Henry Olsson, VinlÃ¶vsranka och hagtornskrans, a study of the poet Gustaf FrÃ¶ding (died 1911)

Israel

 * Abraham Sutzkever, ''Ripened Faces"
 * Yaakov Zvi Shargel, Sunny Doorsteps
 * Aryeh Shamri, Song in the Barn
 * David Rodin, Young and Younger, for young readers
 * Leizer Eichenrand, Thirst for Duration

United States

 * Joseph Rubeinstein, Exodus from Europe, third volume of a narrative trilogy
 * Wolf Pasmanik, My Poems
 * Kadya Molodovsky, Marzipans, for children and adults
 * Moshe Shifris, Under One Roof

Elsewhere

 * Melekh Ravitch, Post Scriptus (Canada)
 * Jacob Sternberg, Poem and Ballad on the Carpathians (France)
 * Izzy Kharik, With Body and Life (Russia)

Other languages

 * Lo Fu (poet) (Luo Fu),River Without Banks, Chinese (Taiwan)
 * Rituraj, Kitna Thora Waqt; India, Hindi-language

Canada

 * See 1970 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

United Kingdom

 * Cholmondeley Award: Kathleen Raine, Douglas Livingstone, Edward Brathwaite
 * Eric Gregory Award: Helen Frye, Paul Mills, John Mole, Brian Morse, Alan Perry, Richard Tibbitts
 * Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Roy Fuller

United States

 * Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (later the post would be called "Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress"): William Stafford appointed this year.
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Richard Howard, Untitled Subjects
 * National Book Award for Poetry: Elizabeth Bishop, The Complete Poems
 * Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets: Howard Nemerov

France

 * Prix Max Jacob: Daniel Boulanger for Tchadiennes and Retouches
 * French Academy's Grand Prix de PoÃ¨sie: Jean Follain

Soviet Union

 * Lenin Prize: Nikolai Tikhonov

Births

 * September 10 – Phaswane Mpe (died 2004), South African novelist and poet
 * September 16 – Nick Sagan, American poet, novelist and screenwriter
 * September 24 – Gemma Moraleja Paz, Spanish poet and novelist


 * Also:
 * Victoria Chang, American poet
 * Alex Garland, novelist
 * Tim Kendall, English poet, editor, critic and academic
 * David Roderick, American poet

Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * January 10 – Charles Olson, 59, of cancer
 * January 15 – Leah Goldberg (born 1911), Israeli poet who wrote in Hebrew
 * January 24 – Caresse Crosby, also known as "Mary Phelps Jacob" (born 1891), American poet and New York socialite, who, in 1927, founded Black Sun Press with her husband Harry Crosby (also a poet) and who in 1910 invented the first modern brassiere to receive a patent and gain wide acceptance
 * February 4 – Louise Bogan, 72
 * February 19 – Edsel Ford, 41
 * March 28 – Nathan Alterman (born 1910), Israeli poet, journalist and translator
 * March 29 – Vera Brittain, English novelist and poet
 * about April 20 – Paul Celan, 49, Romanian-born poet who wrote in German and became a French citizen, from suicide
 * May 12 – Nelly Sachs (born 1891), German-Swedish poet and dramatist who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1966
 * June 2 – Giuseppe Ungaretti, 82, Italian
 * June 18 – Nicholaas Petrus Van Wyk Louw, 64, South African Afrikaans poet and critic
 * September 28 – John Dos Passos (born 1896), American novelist, poet and artist
 * November 25 – Yukio Mishima ä¸‰å³¶ ç”±ç´€å¤«, pen name of Kimitake Hiraoka å¹³å²¡ å…¬å¨ (born 1925), Japanese author, poet and playwright
 * December 31 – Lorine Niedecker (born 1903), American


 * Also:
 * Arthur Nortje (born 1942), South African poet
 * Humayun Kabir (Bengali: à¦¹à§à¦®à¦¾à¦¯à¦¼à§à¦¨ à¦•à¦¬à¦¿à¦°) (born 1906) Bengali poet, educationist, politician, writer, philosopher