1941 in poetry

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

Events

 * September 3 &mdash; 19-year-old John Gillespie Magee, Jr., American poet and aviator, flew a high-altitude test flight in a Spitfire V and afterwards wrote "High Flight" about the experience, on December 11 he dies while serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force, which he had joined before the United States had officially entered World War II
 * The Antioch Review founded
 * Basil Bunting joins the RAF and is eventually sent to Iran as an intelligence officer and a translator during World War II.
 * December &mdash; In siege-bound Leningrad, Yakov Druskin, ill and starving, and Maria Malich, the second wife of Danil Kharms, trudge across the city to Kharms' bombed-out apartment building and collect a trunk full of manuscripts. They hide the manuscripts through the 1940s and 1950s, even bringing them to Siberia, then covertly show them to others in the 1960s. Their actions save much of Kharms' work for posterity as well as that of fellow poet Alexander Vvedensky (of whom only about a quarter of his output survives)
 * Under the Nazi occupation beginning in June 1941, Yiddish poet Abraham Sutzkever was among the Polish Jews interned in the Vilna Ghetto. He would escape and join the resistance in 1943. During the Nazi era, Sutzkever wrote over 80 poems, whose manuscripts he managed to save for postwar publication.
 * Ezra Pound applies to return to the United States but is refused. He begins appearing on Rome Radio, making statements against the Allies.
 * The magazine VVV founded in New York City by French poet André Breton and Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst and David Hare

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

 * Anne Marriott, Calling Adventurers!, Toronto: Ryerson Press.
 * E.J. Pratt, Dunkirk, Toronto: Macmillan.
 * Bertram Warr, Yet a Little Onwards, Broadsheet No. 3, Resurgam Younger Poets series, Favil Press.

Indian poetry in English

 * Sri Aurobindo, Poems ( Poetry in English ), Hydrabad: Government Central Press
 * Bimal Chandra Bose, Thought-Ray ( Poetry in English ), Calcutta: Biman Panthi Publishing House
 * Baldoon Dhingra, Comes Ever the Dawn ( Poetry in English ), Lahore: Ripon Press
 * Manjeri Sundaraman, Brief Orisons ( Poetry in English ), Madras: Hurley Press
 * Thurairajah Tambimuttu, editor, Out of This War ( Poetry in English ), London: Fortune Press; anthology; Indian poetry published in the United Kingdom
 * Hariprasad Sastri, editor and translator, Indian Mystic Verse, (3rd revised and enlarged edition 1984) anthology

United Kingdom

 * W. H. Auden, New Year Letter (sometimes incorrectly called New Year Letters, with an "s"), May (published as The Double Man in the United States in March), English poet living in the United States
 * Laurence Binyon, The North Star, and Other Poems
 * Edmund Blunden, Poems 1930–1940
 * T. S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages, published in New English Weekly, republished in Four Quartets, 1944
 * G. S. Fraser, The Fatal Landscape and Other Poems
 * J. F. Hendry and Henry Treece, editors, The White Horseman, poetry anthology featuring poets in the New Apocalyptics movement
 * Louis MacNeice, Plant and Phantom
 * W. R. Rodgers, Awake! and Other Poems
 * Alan Ross, Summer Thunder
 * A. L. Rowse, Poems of a Decade
 * Sydney Goodsir Smith, Skail Wind, in Scots and English
 * Thurairajah Tambimuttu, editor, Out of This War, London: Fortune Press; anthology; Indian poetry in English, published in the United Kingdom
 * Terence Tiller, Poems, New Hogarth Library 5
 * Vernon Watkins, The Ballad of the Mari Lwyd, and Other Poems

United States

 * W.H. Auden, The Double Man, published in March; later published as New Year Letter in the United Kingdom in May; English poet living in the United States
 * Stephen Vincent Benet, A Summons to the Free
 * John Peale Bishop, Selected Poems
 * Louise Bogan, Poems and New Poems
 * Paul Engle, West of Midnight
 * Kenneth Fearing, Dagger of the Mind
 * John Gould Fletcher, South Star
 * Robinson Jeffers, Be Angry at the Sun
 * Edgar Lee Masters, Illinois Poems
 * Josephine Miles, Poems on Several Occasions
 * Edna St. Vincent Millay, Collected Sonnets
 * Marianne Moore, What Are Years
 * John G. Neihardt, The Song of Jed Smith
 * Carl Rakosi, Selected Poems
 * John Crowe Ransom, The New Criticism, criticism
 * Charles Reznikoff, Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down, self-published
 * Theodore Roethke, Open House
 * Winfield Townley Scott, Wind the Clock
 * Ridgely Torrence, Poems
 * Mark Van Doren, The Mayfield Deer
 * William Carlos Williams, The Broken Span
 * Louis Zukofsky, 55 Poems

Other in English

 * Allen Curnow, Island Time (Caxton), New Zealand
 * Rex Ingamells and John Ingamells, At a Boundary, Adelaide, written by two brothers, includes Reginald Ingamells' "The Gangrened People", Australia
 * R.A.K. Mason, The Dark Will Lighten, New Zealand

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, Le Creve-Coeur
 * Paul Éluard, pen name of Eugène Grindel, Le Livre ouvert, published from 1940 to this year
 * Luc Estang, Puissance du matin
 * Léon-Paul Fargue, Haute Solitude

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:

Hindi

 * Girija Kumar Mathur, Manjir, Indian, Hindi
 * Sumitra Kumari Sinha, Vihag, Hindi
 * Syed Kalbe Mustapha, Malik Muhammad Ja'isi, biography in Urdu of Malik Mohammad Jaisi, a Hindi poet of the 15th century, with descriptions of the poet's works

Other languages on the Indian subcontinent

 * Abanindranath Tagore and Rani Chanda, a memoir describing the lives of the family that included Rabindranath Tagore; a companion volume to Joda Sakor Dhare 1944 and Apan Katha 1946; Bengali
 * Ananta Pattanayak, Tarpana Kare Aji, Indian, Oriya-language
 * Baidyanath Mishra, also known as "Yatri", a dramatic monologue given by a child-widow character, told in colloquial language, a new development in Maithili poetry
 * Bewa Balwant, Maha Nac, Punjabi-language poems inspired by Marxist and left-leaning politics
 * Darshan Singh Awara, Main Bagi Han, Punjabi-language poems reflecting anger toward society as well as religious traditions and institutions
 * Dimbeshwar Neog, Svahid Karbala, Assamese-language narrative poem on a tragedy at Karbala and the martyrdom of Hussain
 * Jyotsna Shukla, Akashnan Phool, Indian poet writing in Gujarati
 * Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Naqsh-e-Faryadi, Indian, Urdu-language
 * Hari Daryani, Hariscandra Jivana Katha, Sindhi-language (India)
 * M. U. Malkani, Gitanjali, translation into Sindhi from the English of Rabindranath Thakur's book of the same name
 * Mohammad Mumtaz Ali, Amir Minasi, biography of the Urdu poet Amir Minai (1828–1900), including descriptions of Minai's works; written in Urdu
 * Narayan Bezbarua, Sakti Singa, Indian, Assamese
 * Pritam Singh Safir, Kattak Kunjam, Indian, Punjabi-language
 * Sri Chandra Singh, "Vadali", a Rajasthani-language nature poem in 130 verses which influenced Rajasthani poets for a generation
 * Wahab Pare of Hajin, Kashmiri Shahnama Firdosi, an adaptation in Kashmiri of the Persian classic poem by Firdousi; with a canto added at the end

Spanish language

 * José Santos Chocano, Oro de Indias, Peru
 * Gerardo Diego, Alondra de verdad ("True Lark"), 42 sonnets on diverse topics; Spain
 * Federico García Lorca, Diván del Tamarit (Spanish for "The Diván of Tamarit", written in 1936, published posthumously this year; Spain
 * Gabriela Mistral, Antología: Selección de Gabriela Mistral, Santiago, Chile: Zig Zag

Awards and honors

 * Governor General's Award, poetry or drama: Calling Adventurers, Anne Marriott (Canada)

United States

 * Frost Medal: Robert Frost
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Leonard Bacon: Sunderland Capture

Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * February 7 – Kevin Crossley-Holland, English poet and children's author
 * February 19 – Stephen Dobyns, American poet and novelist
 * March 1 – Robert Hass, American poet
 * March 22 – Billy Collins, American poet who served two terms as the 44th Poet Laureate of the United States (2001-2003)
 * April 12 – Toi Derricotte, American poet
 * May 17 – Lyn Hejinian, American poet essayist, translator and publisher often associated with the Language poets
 * May 22 – Simon J. Ortiz
 * May 27 – Simon Ortiz Native American poet and writer associated with the Native American Renaissance
 * August 4 – Robert Grenier, American poet essayist, and editor often associated with the Language poets
 * September 1 – Gwendolyn MacEwen (died 1987), a Canadian novelist and poet
 * October 2 – John Sinclair, American poet jailed in 1969 after selling two joints to undercover narcotics officers. In 1971 his case received international attention when John Lennon performed at a benefit concert on his behalf.
 * October 13 – John Snow, cricketer and poet
 * November 23 – Derek Mahon Irish poet
 * November 29 – Lloyd Schwartz
 * Also:
 * David MacLeod Black, South African-born Scots poet
 * Jonathan Holden, American poet and academic
 * Jeremy Hooker, English poet, critic, lecturer and broadcaster
 * Rachel Blau DuPlessis, American poet, essayist, critic and academic
 * Dave Margoshes
 * William Pitt Root, American
 * David Rosenfield
 * Gibbons Ruark, American
 * Stephen Yenser

Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * January 6 – F. R. Higgins, poet
 * January 13 – James Joyce, Irish poet and writer
 * January 23 – John Oxenham, novelist and poet
 * February 5 – A.B. (`Banjo') Paterson, Australian bush poet, journalist and author
 * March 13 – Elizabeth Madox Roberts (born 1880), American novelist and poet
 * May 2 – Ibrahim Touqan إبراهيم طوقان (born 1905), Palestinian, Arab-language
 * May 19 – Lola Ridge (born 1873), American anarchist poet, editor of avant-garde, feminist, and Marxist publications
 * June 15 – Evelyn Underhill, poet
 * August 7 – Rabindranath Tagore, 80 (born 1861), a Bengali poet in India, Brahmo Samaj (syncretic Hindu monotheist) philosopher, visual artist, playwright, composer, and novelist whose works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (1913 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature)
 * August 30 – Jiri Orten
 * November 18 – Émile Nelligan, poet
 * Also:
 * Aline Kilmer
 * Alexander Vvedensky, Russian poet with formidable influence on "unofficial" and avant-garde art during and after the times of the Soviet Union; arrested under suspicion of planning treason and shipped off to a labor camp, he died of dysentery on the way (for the fate of his poetry, see Events section above)