1959 in poetry

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Years in poetry:	1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962
Years in literature:	1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962
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:	1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962

Contents 1 Events 2 Works published 3 Awards and honors 4 Births 5 Deaths 6 See also 7 Notes

[edit] Events

• Literary critic M.L. Rosenthal coins the term "confessional" as used in Confessional poetry in "Poetry as Confession" an article appearing in the September 19 issue of The Nation
• March — at a dinner celebrating Robert Frost's 85th birthday, the critic Lionel Trilling gave some brief remarks about Frost's poetry and "permanently changed the way people think about his subject", according to critic Adam Kirsch. Trilling said that Frost, had been long viewed as a folksy, unobjectionable poet, "an articulate Bald Eagle" who gave readers comfortable truths in traditional meter and New England dialect in such schoolbook favorites such as "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" and "The Road Not Taken". But the critic said Frost instead was "a terrifying poet" not so much like Longfellow as Sophocles, "who made plain ... the terrible things of human life." Trilling was severely criticized at the time, but his view would become widely accepted in the following decades.^[1]
• The chairmanship of The Group, a grouping of British poets, passed to Edward Lucie-Smith this year when Philip Hobsbaum left London to study in Sheffield. The meetings continued at his house in Chelsea, and the circle of poets expanded to include Fleur Adcock, Taner Baybars, Edwin Brock, and Zulfikar Ghose; others including Nathaniel Tarn circulated poems for comment.
• After 20 years, John Crowe Ransom steps down as editor of The Kenyon Review, which he founded.
• Aldous Huxley turns down the offer of a knighthood.

[edit] Works published

• Robert Lowell, Life Studies, a book that reflected stylistic changes that seemed more in line with the popular openness of Beat and Confessional poetry
• Babette Deutsch, Coming of Age
• Odysseus Elytis, To Axion Esti — It Is Worthy
• Allen Ginsberg, Kaddish, written about his mentally-ill mother
• Kenneth Koch, Ko, or a Season on Earth
• Irving Layton, A Red Carpet for the Sun
• James Merrill, The Country of a Thousand Years of Peace
• Charles Reznikoff, Inscriptions: 1944-1956, self-published
• Louis Zukofsky, A 1-12 published by Cid Corman's Origin Press

[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"): Richard Eberhart appointed this year.
• National Book Award for Poetry: Theodore Roethke, Words for the Wind
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Stanley Kunitz, Selected Poems 1928-1958
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Francis Cornford
• Bollingen Prize: Theodore Roethke
• Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets: Louise Bogan

[edit] Births

• date not known:
  • Carl Phillips, American writer and poet
  • Brian P. Cleary
  • Peter Gizzi, American poet
  • Laura Lush

[edit] Deaths

• January 3 — Edwin Muir, 72, Scottish poet, novelist and translator
• February 23 — Luis Palés Matos, Puerto Rican poet, of a heart attack
• April 4 — Sarah Cleghorn, 83
• June 23 — Boris Vian, 39, French writer, poet, singer, and musician
• August 5 — Edgar Guest, 79, American poet known as the "poet of the people"
• September 18 — Benjamin Péret, 60, French poet and Surrealist
• date not known — Dennis Devlin

[edit] See also

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

[edit] Notes

1. ^ [1] Kirsch, Adam, "Subterranean Frost Books", a review of The Notebooks of Robert Frost, in The New York Sun, February 12, 2007, accessed February 16, 2007