1954 in poetry

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

Events

 * January 25 – Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood is broadcast posthumously on BBC Radio.
 * February – W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman move to an apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
 * Spring – Robert Creeley founds and edits the Black Mountain Review.
 * Publication of American literary theorist William K. Wimsatt's collected essays Verbal Icon: Studies in the Meaning of Poetry, including the influential critical essays “The Intentional Fallacy” and “The Affective Fallacy” cowritten with Monroe Beardsley.
 * Jack Kerouac reads Dwight Goddard's A Buddhist Bible, which will influence him greatly.

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

 * Daryl Hine, Five Poems
 * Irving Layton, In the Midst of My Fever. Palma de Mallorca, Spain: Divers Press.
 * Irving Layton, The Long Pea-Shooter. Montreal: Laocoon Press.
 * Jay Macpherson, O Earth Return
 * P. K. Page, The Metal and the Flower, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, Canada
 * Raymond Souster, A Dream That Is Dying. Toronto: Contact Press
 * Raymond Souster, Walking Death. Toronto: Contact Press.
 * F. R. Scott, Events and Signals. Toronto: Ryerson Press.
 * A. J. M. Smith, A Sort of Ecstasy; Michigan State College Press / Ryerson Press.

India, in English

 * Sri Aurobindo:
 * Collected Poems (Poetry in English), Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram
 * Savitri ( Poetry in English ), Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram
 * R. de L. Furtado, The Centre, Hamilton, Ontario: Cromlech Press; Indian author published in Canada
 * Nizamat Jung, Poems (Poetry in English), edited and published by Zahir Ahmed in Hyderabad
 * Prithwi Singh Nahar, The Wind of Silence (Poetry in English), songs, sonnets and other poems; Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram
 * C. Raju, This Modern Age, foreword by Amarnath Jha
 * K. S. R. Sastry, A Vision of India, Madras: Raja Power Press

United Kingdom

 * W. H. Auden, The Shield of Achilles, English poet living in the United States at this time
 * Sir John Betjeman, A Few Late Chrysanthemums
 * George Mackay Brown, The Storm, Scotland
 * Thom Gunn, Fighting Terms, Fantasy Press
 * John Heath-Stubbs, A Charm Against the Toothace
 * Philip Larkin, The Less Deceived
 * David Raikes (posthumous), The Poems of David Raikes

Criticism, scholarship and biography in the United Kingdom

 * P. Cruttwell, The Shakespearean Moment, criticism, United Kingdom
 * G. Hartmann, The Unmediated Vision, criticism, United Kingdom
 * W. K. Wimsatt Jr., The Verbal Icon, criticism, United Kingdom
 * Jon Silkin, The Peaceable Kingdom, including "Death of a Son (who died in a mental hospital aged one)"
 * Dylan Thomas, Quite Early One Morning, New Directions Publishers

United States

 * Léonie Adams, Poems
 * W. H. Auden, The Shield of Achilles, English poet living in the United States at this time
 * Louise Bogan, Collected Poems, 1923–1953
 * E. E. Cummings, Poems, 1923–1954
 * Babette Deutsch, Animal, Vegetable, Mineral
 * Anthony Hecht, A Summoning of Stones
 * Daniel G. Hoffman, An Armada of Thirty Wales
 * Robinson Jeffers, Hungerfield and Other Poems
 * Weldon Kees, Poems 1947–1954
 * Archibald MacLeish, Songs for Eve
 * W. S. Merwin, The Dancing Bears, New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press (reprinted as part of The First Four Books of Poems, 1975)
 * Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mine the Harvest
 * Marianne Moore, The Fables of La Fontaine
 * Howard Moss, The Toy Fair
 * Kenneth Patchen, The Famous Boating Party
 * May Swenson, Another Animal
 * Wallace Stevens, The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, includes "The Rock," previously unpublished section including "The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain," "A Quiet Normal Life," "Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour," "The Rock," "The Planet on the Table," and "Not Ideas about the Thing but the Thing Itself"), Knopf
 * E. B. White, The Second Tree from the Corner
 * William Carlos Williams, The Desert Music and Other Poems

Criticism, scholarship and biography in the United States

 * Hugh Kenner, Wyndham Lewis: A Critical Guidebook, criticism, United States
 * W. C. Williams, Selected Essays, criticism, United States

Other

 * Martin Carter, Poems of Resistance, Guyana
 * Wilson Harris, Eternity to Season, Guyana
 * Frank Prince, Soldiers Bathing and Other Poems, South African
 * Keith Sinclair, Strangers or Beasts: Poems, New Zealand

Canada, in French

 * Jean-Guy Pilon, Les cloîtres de l'été, Montréal: l'Hexagone

France

 * Louis Aragon, Les Yeux et la memoire
 * Jean Cocteau, Clair–obscur
 * René Daumal, Poésie noire, poésie blanche, posthumously published (died 1944)
 * Jean Follain, Appareil de la terre
 * Jean Grosjean, Fils de l'homme
 * Henri Michaux, Face au verrous

India
In each section, listed in alphabetical order by first name:

Hindi

 * Girija Kumar Mathur, Dhup ke dhan
 * Namvar Singh, Chayavad, literary criticism that offers a radically new interpretation of the romantic movement in Hindi poetry; shows the social foundations of Hindi romanticism and its ties to the progressive movement that followed it
 * Premchand, Sahitya Ka Uddesya, literary essays; published posthumously

Malayalam

 * P. K. Paramesvaran Nair, Adhunika Sahitya Caritram, history of Malayalam literature (later translated into English and published by Sahitya Akademi in 1967 under the title History of Malayalam Literature)
 * P. Kunjiraman Nair, Kaliyacchan, poems reflecting traditional ways of life in Kerala
 * Sreedhara Menon, Kunnimenikal
 * Sukumar Azhikode, Asante Sitakavyam, critical assessment of Kumaran Asan's Cintavishtayaya

Urdu

 * Gian Chand Jain, , literary criticism on classical Urdu fiction ("dastan"), written in that language
 * Jigar Brelvi, Payam-i Savitri, a narrative poem on Savitri, a figure from Hindu mythology; Urdu
 * Masood Husain Khan, Urdu zaban aur adab, critical study on the Urdu language and literature

Other languages of the Indian subcontinent

 * Baldev Gajra, also known as "Gumnam", Gumnam Sada, nationalist poems; Sindhi
 * Buddhadeb Basu, Sahitya Carca, essays on various literary topics; Bengali
 * Jayant Pathak, Marmar, the author's first poetry collection; Gujarati
 * M. Gopalakrishna Adiga, Cendemaddale, Kannada
 * Mohan Singh, Awazan, lyrics with a "romantic progressive ideology", according to Indian academic Sisir Kumar Das; Punjabi
 * Nand Lal Ambardar, Loel Ta Husun, including "Roopavat", Kashmiri
 * Nirendranath Chakraborty (also transliterated into English as Nirendranath Chakravarti, ), Nilnirjan (also transliterated into English as Nirendranath Chakravarti), mostly love poems, although one or two have political elements, Kolkata: Signet Press; Bengali-language
 * Raghunath Singh Samyal, Dogra Desa Te Dogari Boli, Dogri poetry praising Dograland, Dogra people and the Dogri language
 * Tulasibahadur Chetri, nicknamed "Apatan", Samkalpa ("Resolve"), Nepali
 * Madhunapantula Satyanarayanashastri, also spelled "Madhunapantula Satyanarayana Sastri", Andhra Puranamu, Telugu, (surname: Madhunapantula)
 * Manoj Das, Padadvani, Oriya
 * Satramdas, also known as "Sail", Rama Katha, 32 cantos in a Persian meter, written in the wake of the partition of India in 1947; Sindhi
 * Visvanatha Satyanarayana, Nannayagari prasanna Katha Kalitartha Yukti, critical appraisal of Nannaya; Telugu

Other languages

 * Simin Behbahani, Ja-ye Pa ("Footprint"), Persia
 * José Santos Chocano, Obras completas, pról. de Luis Alberto Sánchez Madrid, Aguilar, Peruvian poetry published in Spain
 * Haim Gouri, Shirei Hotam ("Poems of the Seal"), Israeli writing in Hebrew
 * Sorley MacLean, Hallaig, Scottish Gaelic (in Gairm 8)
 * Pier Paolo Pasolini, La meglio gioventù, Friulian language published in Italy
 * Maria Luisa Spaziani, Le acque del sabato, Italy
 * Wisława Szymborska, Pytania zadawane sobie ("Questioning Yourself"), Poland
 * Tin Ujević, Žedan kamen na studencu ("Thirsty stone at the wellspring"), Croatian

Awards and honors

 * National Book Award for Poetry: Conrad Aiken, Collected Poems
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Theodore Roethke: The Waking
 * King's Gold Medal for Poetry: Ralph Hodgson
 * Bollingen Prize: W. H. Auden
 * Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets: Louise Townsend Nicholl and Oliver St. John Gogarty
 * Canada: Governor General's Award, poetry or drama: The Metal and the Flower, P. K. Page

Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * February 9 – Ian Duhig, English poet
 * February 13 – Vijay Seshadri, Indian poet, essayist and literary critic who emigrates to the United States c. 1959
 * February 21 – Francisco X. Alarcón (died 2016), Mexican-American poet
 * February 27 – Thylias Moss, African-American poet, writer and playwright
 * March 4 – Irina Ratushinskaya, Russian samizdat poet
 * March 26 – Dorothy Porter (died 2008), Australian
 * April 17 – Erín Moure, Canadian
 * May 5 – Hamid Ismailov, Uzbek writer
 * May 25 – Alexei Parshchikov (died 2009), Russian poet, critic and translator who emigrates to the United States in 1991
 * July 5 – Kevin Hart, Australian
 * July 19 – Jane Eaton Hamilton, Canadian short story writer, poet and photographer
 * July 31 – Kim Addonizio, American poet and novelist
 * August 6 – Lorna Dee Cervantes, American poet
 * August 8 – Yu Jian, China
 * August 15 – Mary Jo Salter, American
 * October 15 – Peter Bakowski, Australian
 * November 10 – Joy Goswami, Indian Bengali poet (a man)
 * December 5 – Lynda Hull, American
 * December 20 – Sandra Cisneros, American poet and author
 * December 27 – David Baker, American
 * Also:
 * Catherine Anderson (poet), American
 * Robert Boates, Canadian
 * Brother Resistance, Trinidadian (died 2021)
 * Janet Charman, New Zealand
 * Imtiaz Dharker, Pakistan-born British
 * Cornelius Eady, African American
 * David Hallett, Australian
 * Sotiris Kakisis, Greek
 * Jan Heller Levi, American
 * Ahmed Matar, Iraqi poet
 * Ibrahim Nasrallah, Jordanian-Palestinian poet and novelist
 * Luis J. Rodriguez, American poet, novelist, journalist, critic and columnist
 * Stephen Sartarelli, poet and translator
 * Deb Westbury (died 2018), Australian

Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * January 1 – Leonard Bacon, 66 (born 1887), American poet
 * February 6 – Maxwell Bodenheim, 62 (born 1892), American poet and novelist known as the "King of Greenwich Village Bohemians", murdered
 * March 28 – Francis Brett Young, 73 (born 1884), English novelist and poet
 * August 3 – Fumiko Nakajo 中城ふみ子, pen name of Noe Fumiko 野江富美子, 32 (born 1922), Japanese tanka poet who dies young after a turbulent life and struggle with breast cancer, as recorded in her poetry (surname: Nakajo)
 * August 18 – Samukawa Sokotsu 寒川鼠骨 (born 1875), Japanese, Meiji period haiku poet; Masaoka Shiki's pupil.
 * October 22
 * Jibanananda Das (born 1899), Bengali poet
 * Oswald de Andrade (born 1890), Brazilian poet and polemicist