1950 in poetry

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Years in poetry:	1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953
Years in literature:	1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953
Decades in poetry:	1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s
Centuries in poetry:	19th century 20th century 21st century
Centuries:	19th century · 20th century · 21st century
Decades:	1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s
Years:	1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953

Contents 1 Events 2 Works published 3 Awards and honors 4 Births 5 Deaths 6 See also

[edit] Events

• Charles Olson publishes his seminal essay, Projective Verse. In this, he called for a poetry of "open field" composition to replace traditional closed poetic forms with an improvised form that should reflect exactly the content of the poem. This form was to be based on the line, and each line was to be a unit of breath and of utterance. The content was to consist of "one perception immediately and directly (leading) to a further perception". This essay was to become a kind of de facto manifesto for the Black Mountain poets.
• George Oppen and his wife, Mary, move from the United States to Mexico, where their links to Communism are less problematic.
• In the fall, the Beloit Poetry Journal is founded.

[edit] Works published

• W.H. Auden, Collected Shorter Poems 1930-1944
• Basil Bunting, Poems: 1950
• Nancy Cato, The Darkened Window
• E.E. Cummings, Xaipe: Seventy-One Poems
• Leah Bodine Drake, A Hornbook for Witches
• Ezra Pound, Seventy Cantos
• Mid-Century American Poets, an anthology including poets who came to prominence in the 1940s, including Robert Lowell, Muriel Rukeyser, Karl Shapiro, Elizabeth Bishop, Theodore Roethke, Randall Jarrell, and John Ciardi
• William Carlos Williams, The Collected Later Poems

[edit] Awards and honors

• Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (later the post would be called "Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress"): Conrad Aiken appointed this year.
• Harriet Monroe Prize from Poetry magazine: E.E. Cummings
• National Book Award for Poetry: William Carlos Williams, Paterson: Book III and Selected Poems
• Pulitzer Prize for poetry: Gwendolyn Brooks, Annie Allen
• Bollingen Prize: Wallace Stevens
• Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets: E. E. Cummings

[edit] Births

• April 4 — Charles Bernstein, American poet, critic, editor and teacher
• April 28 — Carolyn Forché, American poet, editor, and human rights advocate
• May 9:
  • Christopher Dewdney, avant-garde Canadian poet
  • Jorie Graham American poet and the editor of numerous volumes of poetry
• June 21 — Anne Carson, Canadian poet, essayist, translator, and academic
• December 24 — Dana Gioia, American poet who retired early from his career as a corporate executive at General Foods to write full time and later became chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts
• date not known:
  • Frances Chung
  • Theodore Deppe
  • Susan L. Helwig
  • Edward Hirsch American poet and academic
  • Kim Maltman Canadian poet and physicist
  • E. Ethelbert Miller
  • Wayne Scott Ray
  • Stan Rogal
  • Kenneth Sherman
  • Sandy Shreve
  • Arthur Sze
  • Chase Twichell, American poet and owner of her own publishing company, Ausable Press
  • John Yau, American poet and critic

[edit] Deaths

• March 5 — Edgar Lee Masters, American poet, biographer and dramatist
• May 4 — William Rose Benét, American poet, writer, editor, and the older brother of Stephen Vincent Benét
• May 20 — John Gould Fletcher, Pulitzer Prize-winning American, Imagist poet and author
• October 19 — Edna St. Vincent Millay, 58, of a heart attack;
• December 26 — James Stephens, Irish poet and novelist
• date not known — Xavier Villaurrutia, Mexican poet and dramatist

[edit] See also

• Poetry
• List of poetry awards
• List of years in poetry