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1916 in poetry
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none
1916 poetry literature
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—
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 W. B. Yeats
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).
Events
February 5 – Cabaret Voltaire is opened by German performance poet Hugo Ball and his future wife Emmy Hennings in the back room of Ephraim Jan's Holländische Meierei in Zürich, Switzerland; although surviving only until the summer it is pivotal in the creation of the Dada movement in art, poetry and literature. Tristan Tzara, Marcel Janco, Richard Huelsenbeck, Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Jean Arp are among those who gather here to discuss art and put on performances expressing their disgust with World War I and the interests they believe have inspired it.
March
Guillaume Apollinaire (Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky) is wounded in the head by shell fragments while serving as a lieutenant in the French infantry on the Western Front (World War I).Auster, Paul The Random House Book of Twentieth-Century French Poetry: with Translations by American and British Poets New York Random House 1982 0-394-52197-8 https://archive.org/details/randomhousebooko00aust
The first poems of English children's author Enid Blyton are published, in Nash's Magazine.http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/enid-the-writer.php Enid the writer Enid Blyton Society 2014-01-23
March 10 – Sir Hubert Parry writes the choral setting of William Blake's poem "And did those feet in ancient time" (c.1804-08) which becomes known as "Jerusalem" (first performed 28 March at the Queen's Hall, London).
March 30 – Don Marquis introduces the characters Archy and Mehitabel in his "The Sun Dial" column in The Evening Sun (New York City); archy is a poetry-writing cockroach unable to operate the typewriter shift key.
April 24–30 – Easter Rising in Ireland: Members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood proclaim an Irish Republic and the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army occupy the General Post Office and other buildings in Dublin before surrendering to the British Army. Of the seven leaders of the Rising (subsequently executed), Thomas MacDonagh, Patrick Pearse and Joseph Plunkett are all poets and James Connolly a balladeer. The event is the theme of W. B. Yeats' poem "Easter, 1916", first published this September.
July 1
First day on the Somme: Poets W. N. Hodgson, Will Streets, Gilbert Waterhouse, Henry Field, Alfred Ratcliffe, Alexander Robertson and Bernard White are among the 19,000 British soldiers killed on this day alone.Poets Killed on the First Day of the Somme http://www.scuttlebuttsmallchow.com/killedsomme.html Poetry of the First World War 2013-05-21 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20110522142845/http://www.scuttlebuttsmallchow.com/killedsomme.html 2011-05-22 The Battle of the Somme continues until October 18, during which time American poet Alan Seeger (serving with the French), English poet Edward Tennant, and short-story writer H. H. Munro ("Saki") are killed, Robert Graves is seriously wounded (believed killed), David Jones receives physical and psychological injuries, Ford Madox Hueffer suffers concussion and shellshock, A. A. Milne and J. R. R. Tolkien are invalided out, Siegfried Sassoon wins the Military Cross, and Cameron Highlander Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna composes the Scottish Gaelic love song An Eala Bhàn ("The White Swan") in the oral literature tradition.
W. B. Yeats makes his fifth and final proposal of marriage to the newly widowed Maud Gonne in France.
c. July–December – Poets Terence MacSwiney and Darrell Figgis are among Irish republicans detained in Reading Gaol (England) following the Easter Rising.Maev Kennedy Maev Kennedy Jailer complained about noisy Easter Rising prisoners, letter reveals https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/apr/21/easter-rising-jailer-singing-letter-reading-gaol The Guardian London 2016-04-21 2024-03-10
July 14 – Hugo Ball recites the Dada manifesto in Zürich.
August 17 – English poet F. W. Harvey becomes a prisoner of war.
September 10 – Wilfrid Gibson becomes the last of the Dymock poets to leave the area of Dymock in England.Jeff Cooper Timeline of the Dymock Poets 1911–1916 Friends of the Dymock Poets 2023-04-26 https://www.dymockpoets.org.uk/Timeline.htm
October 6 – Romanian poet and critic Perpessicius loses his right arm while fighting in a skirmish at Muratan.Ene Ileana Perpessicius Perpessicius Studii eminesciene Museum of Romanian Literature Bucharest 2001 14 Tabel cronologic 973-8031-34-6
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, Connecticut, where he will remain the rest of his life.Richardson Joan Wallace Stevens: The Early Years, 1879-1923 New York Beech Tree Books 1986 445
Works published in English
Canada
Bliss Carman, April Airs: A Book of New England Lyrics, Boston: Small, Maynard and Co.; Canadian poet published in the United StatesGarvin, John William https://archive.org/details/canadianpoets00garvgoog Canadian Poets McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart 1916 2009-06-05
Thomas O'Hagan, Songs of Heroic Days, Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart
Marjorie Pickthall, The Lamp of Poor Souls and Other Poems."Marjorie Pickthall 1883-1922: Works," Canadian Women Poets, BrockU.ca, Web, Apr. 6, 2011
Duncan Campbell Scott, Lundy's Lane and Other Poems, including "The Height of Land"Keith, W. J., "Poetry in English: 1867-1918", article in The Canadian Encyclopedia, retrieved February 8, 2009
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
From Before Action by W. N. Hodgson
I, that on my familiar hill
Saw with uncomprehending eyes
A hundred of thy sunsets spill
Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice,
Ere the sun swings his noonday sword
Must say good-bye to all of this; –
By all delights that I shall miss,
Help me to die, O Lord.
-- last verse; produced two days before the poet's death at the First day on the Somme
Laurence Binyon, The Anvil, and Other PoemsCox, Michael The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature Oxford University Press 2004 0-19-860634-6 https://archive.org/details/conciseoxfordchr00coxm
Edmund Blunden, Pastorals
Robert Bridges (ed.), The Spirit of Man: an anthology in English & French from the philosophers & poets, made by the Poet Laureate in 1915
Émile Cammaerts, New Belgian Poems: Les trois rois et autres poèmes, expatriate Francophone Belgian poet translated into English
Mary Gabrielle Collins, Branches unto the Sea
Elizabeth Daryush, Verses
W. H. Davies:
Child Lovers, and Other Poems
Collected Poems
Eleanor Farjeon, Nursery Rhymes of London Town
Robert Graves, Over the Brazier
Thomas Hardy, Selected Poems
F. W. Harvey, A Gloucestershire Lad At Home and Abroad
Aldous Huxley, The Burning Wheel
D. H. Lawrence, Amores
Joseph Lee, Ballads of Battle, Scottish poet
Winifred Mary Letts, Hallow-e'en and Poems of the War (including "The Spires of Oxford")
Charlotte Mew, The Farmer's Bride
Jessie Pope, Simple Rhymes for Stirring Times
Cecil Roberts, Collected War Poems
Lady Margaret Sackville, The Pageant of War
Dorothy L. Sayers, Op. 1
Edith Sitwell and Osbert Sitwell, Twentieth Century Harlequinade, and Other Poems
The first Wheels poetry anthology Wheels 1916 edited by the Sitwells.
Cicily Fox Smith, Fighting Men
Charles Hamilton Sorley, Marlborough and Other Poems (posthumous)
Muriel Stuart, Christ at Carnival and Other Poems
Rabindranath Tagore, Fruit Gathering, lyrics translated by the author into English from the original Bengali (Indian poetry in English)
Edward Tennant, Worple Flit and other poems (posthumous)
Edward Thomas, Six Poems, his first published poetry (under the pen name 'Edward Eastaway')
Aelfrida Tillyard, The Garden and the Fire
Katharine Tynan, The Holy War
Gilbert Waterhouse, Rail-Head and other poems (posthumous)
Evelyn Waugh, The World to Come: A Poem in Three Cantos (written at age 12; privately printed)
Anna Wickham, The Man With A Hammer
Alfred Williams, War Sonnets and Songs
W. B. 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—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-- last verse (lines 16-20)
Pauline B. Barrington, "Education" published in The Masses as "Toy Guns"
Conrad Aiken:
Turns and MoviesLudwig, Richard M., and Clifford A. Nault Jr., Annals of American Literature: 1602–1983, 1986, New York: Oxford University Press ("If the title page is one year later than the copyright date, we used the latter since publishers frequently postdate books published near the end of the calendar year." — from the Preface, p vi)
The Jig of Forslin
James Branch Cabell, From the Hidden Way
Florence Earle Coates (1850–1927), Poems (collected edition in two volumes)
J. W. Cunliffe, editor, Poems of the Great War
H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Sea Garden
John Gould Fletcher, Goblins and Pagodas
Robert Frost, Mountain Interval, including "The Road Not Taken" and "Out, Out—"
Edgar A. Guest, A Heap o' Livin'''
Robinson Jeffers, Californians Sarah Orne Jewett, Verses, published posthumously (died 1909)
From Chicagoby 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;Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair, editors, The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, W. W. Norton & Company, 1973, 0-393-09357-3 including "Chicago"
Alan Seeger, PoemsOther in English
C. J. Dennis, The Moods of Ginger Mick, Australia
W. Walter Gill, Juan-y-Pherick’s Journey and Other Poems, Isle of Man
N. C. Rai, An Indian Tale, a tale of rural life; Calcutta; India, Indian poetry in EnglishVinayak Krishna Gokak, The Golden Treasury Of Indo-Anglian Poetry (1828-1965), p 314, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi (1970, first edition; 2006 reprint), 81-260-1196-3, retrieved August 6, 2010
Rabindranath Tagore, Fruit Gathering lyrics translated by the author into English from the original Bengali; India, Indian poetry in English
W. B. Yeats, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom:
"Easter, 1916"
Responsibilities and Other Poems Reveries Over Childhood and Youth Joseph Furphy and Kate Baker – The Poems of Joseph Furphy, Australia
Works published in other languages
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 IBree, Germaine, Twentieth-Century French Literature, translated by Louise Guiney, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1983
Francis Jammes, Cinq prières pour le temps de la guerre, Paris: Librairie de l'Art catholiqueWeb page titled "POET Francis Jammes (1868 - 1938)", at The Poetry Foundation website, retrieved August 30, 2009. 2009-09-03.
Pierre Reverdy, La Lucarne ovaleIndian 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)Das, Sisir Kumar and various, History of Indian Literature: 1911-1956: struggle for freedom: triumph and tragedy, Volume 2, 1995, published by Sahitya Akademi, 978-81-7201-798-9, retrieved via Google Books on December 23, 2008
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
Olav Aukrust, Himmelvarden, Norwegian poet writing in Nynorsk
Hugo Ball, "Karawane", German poet in Switzerland writing in nonsense words
José María Eguren, La canción de las figuras, PeruFitts, Dudley, editor, Anthology of Contemporary Latin-American Poetry/Antología de la Poesía Americana Contemporánea Norfolk, Conn., New Directions, (also London: The Falcoln Press, but this book was "Printed in U.S.A.), 1947, p 603
Albert Ehrenstein, Der Mensch schreit and Nicht da nicht dort, Germany
Yvan Goll, Requiem pour les morts de l’Europe, German poet in Switzerland writing in French
Nikolay Gumilyov, The Quiver, Russia
Vicente Huidobro, Adán, Chile
Joseph Lenoir-Rolland, Poèmes épars, lyrics; French language; CanadaStory, Noah, The Oxford Companion to Canadian History and Literature, "Poetry in French" article, pp 651-654, Oxford University Press, 1967
Antonio Machado, Campos de Castilla (revised edition), Spain
Vladimir Mayakovsky, The Backbone Flute (Fleyta pozvonochnik) and War and the World (Voina i mir), Russian
1914–1916: Eine Anthologie, Germany
Martinus Nijhoff, De wandelaar, Netherlands
Sergei Yesenin, Radunitsa (Радуница, "Ritual for the Dead"), his first book of poetry, Russian
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), English peer and author of novels, short stories, memoirs and verse"Lord Tweedsmuir", obituary, Daily Telegraph, London, July 9, 2008, retrieved December 9, 2008
Bernard Binlin Dadié (died 2019), Ivorien author and politician
January 12 – Mary Wilson (died 2018), English prime ministerial spose and poet
February 1 – Venibhai Purohit (died 1980), Indian, Gujarati-language
February 4 – Gavin Ewart (died 1995), English
February 10 – Thomas Blackburn (died 1977), English
March 7 – Balmukund Dave (died 1993), Indian, Gujarati-language poet
March 11 – Jack Clemo (died 1994), English poet of Cornwall
May 9 – Helen Haenke (died 1978), Australian poet and playwrightHaenke, Helen Joyce (1916-1978) Australian Dictionary of Biography https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/haenke-helen-joyce-10387 2007-05-21
June 14 – John Ciardi (died 1986), American poet, translator and etymologist
June 15 – Hari Daryani, "Dilgir" (died 2004), Indian, Sindhi-language poet
July 6 – Harold Norse (died 2009), American poet and memoirist; writes seminal memoir of the Beat poets in Paris
August 1
Anne Hébert (died 2000), Canadian, French language
Val Vallis (died 2009), Australian
August 29 – Rhydwen Williams (died 1997), Welsh poet, novelist and minister of religion
September 8 – Philip O'Connor (died 1998), English writer and surrealist poet
September 13 – John Malcolm Brinnin (died 1998), American poet and literary critic
September 24 – W. J. Gruffydd (Elerydd) (died 2011), Welsh
September 25 – Paul Roche (died 2007), English poet, translator and academic associated with the Bloomsbury GroupFox, Margalit, "Paul Roche, Poet in Bloomsbury Group, Is Dead at 91", obituary, The New York Times, November 25, 2007, retrieved December 22, 2008
October 10 – Samar Sen, সমর সেন (died 1987), Bengali poet and journalist
October 16 – David Gascoyne (died 2001), English author and poet
November 23 – P. K. Page (died 2010), Canadian
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
Ghulam Nabi Dilsoz (died 1941), Indian, Kashmiri-language poet
Margaret Irvin, AustralianIrvin, Margaret AustLit Database http://www.austlit.edu.au/run?ex=ShowAgent&agentId=A%2C!K 2007-05-21
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
Tom Rawling (died 1996), English poet and angler
Pinakin Thakore, Indian, Gujarati-language poet
Pritam Singh Safir (died 1999), Indian, Punjabi-language poet
Raghunath Vishnu Pandit (died 1990), Indian, Konkani language poet also writing in Marathi, modernist poet, novelist, short-story writer and essayist
Takis Varvitsiotis (died 2011), Greek poet
Deaths
Note "Killed in World War I" subsection, below. Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
February 7 – William Little (born 1839), English-born Australian
February 12 – John Townsend Trowbridge (born 1827), American poet and author
March 11 – Duncan MacGregor Crerar (born 1836), Scottish
April 26 – Mário de Sá-Carneiro (born 1890), Portuguese-born poet and novelist, suicide
July 1? – Arabella Eugenia Smith (born 1844), American
August 27 – Petar Kočić (born 1877), Bosnian Serb
October 7 – James Whitcomb Riley (born 1849), American
October 21 – Olindo Guerrini (born 1845), Italian
October 25 – John Todhunter (born 1839), Irish poet and playwright
November 27 – Emile Verhaeren (born 1855), Belgian French language 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 will feature on the 1000 yen note
Also:
Sacchindananda Tribhuban Deb (born 1872), Indian Oriya-language poet, patron of Oriya literature and ruler of Bamanda, a feudal state in Sambalpur District
Asad Pare, Indian, Kashmiri-language, Sufi
Killed in World War I
January 24 – H. Rex Freston (born 1891), English poet
January 27 – C. Morton Horne (born 1885), Irish-born musical comedy performer, writer and war poet
May 31 – Gorch Fock (born 1880), German poet and novelist
July 1 – First day on the Somme:
W. N. Hodgson (born 1893), English war poet
Will Streets (born 1886), English war poet
Gilbert Waterhouse (born 1883), English architect and war poet, second lieutenant in 2nd Bn Essex Regiment
July 4 – Alan Seeger (born 1888), American poet who joined the French Foreign Legion in 1914 and died in battle, cheering on his fellow soldiers after being hit; uncle of American folk singer Pete Seeger
September 9 – Tom Kettle (born 1880), Irish writer and politician
September 22 – Edward Tennant (born 1897), English war poet
November 14 – H. H. Munro ("Saki"; born 1870), English poet, short story writer, novelist and playwright
December 3 – Geoffrey Bache Smith (born 1894), English poet
Awards and honors
Nobel Prize for Literature: Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam, Swedish poet and novelist
See also
Poetry
List of years in poetry
Dada
Imagism
Modernist poetry in English
Silver Age of Russian Poetry
Ego-Futurism movement in Russian poetry
Expressionism movement in German poetry
Young Poland (Polish: Młoda Polska'') modernist period in Polish arts and literature
Poetry
Notes
Category:20th-century poetry
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