1970 in poetry

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

Events

 * May – "La nuit de la poésie", a poetry reading in Montreal bringing together poets from French Canada to recite before an audience of more than 2,000 in the Théâtre du Gesu, lasting until 7 a.m.
 * Release of Tomfoolery, an animated film directed by Joy Batchelor and John Halas, based on the nonsense verse of Edward Lear (especially "The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo") and Lewis Carroll
 * First issue of Tapia (later named the Trinidad & Tobago Review) published
 * In the United Kingdom, "My Enemies Have Sweet Voices", a poem by Pete Morgan, is set to music by Al Stewart and included in his "Zero She Flies" album this year.

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:

Australia

 * Robert Adamson Canticles on the Skin
 * B. Elliott and A. Mitchell, Bards in the Wilderness: Australian Colonial Poetry to 1920, anthology
 * John Tranter, Parallax, South Head Press

Canada

 * Earle Birney, Rag & Bone Shop. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart).
 * Joan Finnigan, It Was Warm and Sunny When We Set Out
 * Gail Fox, Dangerous Season
 * R.A.D. Ford, The Solitary City, his poems and translations from Russian and Portuguese
 * John Glassco, Memoirs of Montparnasse
 * Michael Ondaatje:
 * The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left-handed Poems (adapted by Ondaatje into a play of the same name in 1973), Toronto: Anansi ISBN 0-88784-018-3 ; New York: Berkeley, 1975
 * Leonard Cohen (literary criticism), Toronto: McClelland & Stewart
 * Joe Rosenblatt, Bumblebee Dithyramb.

Anthologies in Canada

 * Robert Evans, editor, Song to a Seagull, collected Canadian songs and poems
 * John Glassco, editor, The Poetry of French Canada in Translation, translated by English-speaking poets, including E. J. Pratt, Al Purdy, Leonard Cohen; and poetic lyrics from recent songs
 * Raymond Souster and Douglas Lochhead, eds. New Poems of the Seventies. Ottawa: Oberon Press.
 * Raymond Souster and Douglas Lochhead, eds. Made in Canada. Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1970.
 * Raymond Souster and Richard Woollatt, eds. Generation Now. Longman Canada.

India in English

 * Shiv Kumar, Articulate Silences ( Poetry in English ), Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India.
 * Keki N. Daruwalla, Under Orion ( Poetry in English ), Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India . also New Delhi: Harper Collins Publishers India Pvt Ltd.;
 * Sukanta Chaudhuri, The Glass King and Other Poems ( Poetry in English ), Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India.
 * Gauri Deshpande, Lost Love ( Poetry in English ),
 * Suniti Namjoshi, More Poems( Poetry in English ),
 * Roshen Alkazi, Seventeen More Poems ( Poetry in English ), Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India . (see also Seventeen Poems 1965)
 * Margaret Chatterjee, Towards the Sun ( Poetry in English ), Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India.
 * Mary Ann Das Gupta, The Peacock Smiles ( Poetry in English ), Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India.
 * N. Prasad, Iconography of Time, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India.
 * Monika Varma, Green Leaves & Gold ( Poetry in English ), Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India.

Ireland

 * Leland Bardwell, The Mad Cyclist
 * Seamus Heaney, Northern Ireland poet published in the United Kingdom:
 * Night Drive, Gilbertson
 * A Boy Driving His Father to Confession, Sceptre Press
 * Derek Mahon, Beyond Howth Head, Northern Ireland poet published in the United Kingdom

New Zealand

 * James K. Baxter, Jerusalem Sonnets
 * Bill Manhire, Malady
 * F. McKay, New Zealand Poetry, scholarship
 * Vincent O'Sullivan, editor, An Anthology of Twentieth Century New Zealand Verse
 * J. E. Weir, The Poetry of James K. Baxter, a critical study

United Kingdom

 * Dannie Abse, Selected Poems
 * Margaret Atwood, The Journals of Susanna Moodie
 * George Barker, At Thurgarton Church
 * R. H. Bowden, Poems from Italy
 * Frederick Broadie, My Findings
 * Michael Dennis Browne, The Wife of Winter
 * Charles Causley, Figgie Hobbin
 * Donald Davie, Six Epistles to Eva Hesse
 * C. Day-Lewis, The Whispering Roots
 * Patric Dickinson, More Than Time
 * Clifford Dyment, Collected Poems
 * D.J. Enright, Selected Poems
 * W.S. Graham, Malcolm Mooney's Land
 * Ian Hamilton, The Visit
 * Tony Harrison, The Loiners
 * Seamus Heaney, Northern Ireland poet published in the United Kingdom:
 * Night Drive, Gilbertson
 * A Boy Driving His Father to Confession, Sceptre Press
 * Glyn Hughes, Neighbours
 * Ted Hughes, Crow
 * C. Day-Lewis, The Whispering Roots
 * George MacBeth, The Burning Cone
 * Norman MacCaig, A Man in My Position
 * Hugh MacDiarmid, Selected Poems
 * Sorley MacLean, George Campbell Hay, William Neill and Stuart MacGregor, Four Points of a Saltire (includes some poems in Scottish Gaelic)
 * Derek Mahon, Beyond Howth Head Northern Ireland poet published in the United Kingdom
 * Walter de la Mare, The Complete Poems of Walter de la Mare
 * Stuart Montgomery, Circe
 * Brian Patten, The Homecoming
 * Christopher Pilling, Snakes and Girls, won the new Poets Award sponsored by Leeds university and the Yorkshire Post
 * Peter Porter, The Last of England
 * Burns Singer, Collected Poems (posthumous)
 * Iain Crichton Smith, Selected Poems
 * Charles Tomlinson, The Way of a World
 * John Wain, Letters to Five Artists
 * Ted Walker, The Night Bathers
 * Hugo Williams, Sugar Daddy
 * Mary Wilson (wife of Prime Minister Harold Wilson), Selected Poems, "easily the 'best selling'" poetry book of the year.
 * Clive Young, Ashdragons, Flowerdeath and Sun

Anthologies in the United Kingdom

 * Alan Bold, editor, The Penguin Book of Socialist Verse
 * Peter Robins, editor, Doves for the Seventies
 * Edward Lucie-Smith, editor, British Poetry since 1945, Penguin (2nd edition 1985)
 * F.E.S. Finn, editor, Poems of the Sixties
 * Howard Sergeant, editor, Poetry of the 1940s

United States

 * A.R. Ammons, Uplands
 * John Ashbery, The Double Dream of Spring
 * Paul Blackburn:
 * The Assassination of President McKinley
 * Three Dreams and an Old Poem
 * Gin: Four Journal Pieces
 * Louise Bogan, A Poet's Alphabet
 * Philip Booth, Margins
 * Stanley Burnshaw, The Seamless Web
 * Gwendolyn Brooks, Family Pictures
 * Raymond Carver, Winter Insomnia
 * J. P. Clark, Casualties: Poems 1966–68, Nigerian poet published in the United States
 * Clark Coolidge, Space, Harper & Row
 * L. Sprague de Camp, Demons and Dinosaurs
 * James Dickey, The Eye-Beaters, Blood, Victory, Madness, Buckhead and Mercy
 * Ed Dorn:
 * Gunslinger I & II, Fulcrum Press
 * Songs Set Two: a Short Count, Frontier Press, ISBN 978-0-686-05052-0
 * Michael S. Harper, Dear John, Dear Coultrane, nominated for the National Book Award
 * John Hollander, Images of Voice, criticism
 * David Ignatow, Poems: 1934-1969
 * LeRoi Jones, It's Nation Time
 * Shirley Kaufman, the Floor Keeps Turning
 * Denise Levertov, Relearning the Alphabet
 * William Meredith, Earth Walk
 * W. S. Merwin:
 * The Carrier of Ladders, New York: Atheneum (awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1971)
 * Signs, with graphics by A. D. Moore; Iowa City, Iowa: Stone Wall Press
 * Lorine Niedecker, My Life by Water: Collected Poems, 1936-1968 (Fulcrum Press)
 * Michael Ondaatje, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid
 * Ezra Pound's Drafts and Fragments of Cantos CX to CXVII
 * Mark Strand, Darker, Canadian native living in and published in the United States
 * May Swenson, Iconographs
 * Mona Van Duyn, To See, To Take
 * Reed Whittemore, Fifty Poems Fifty
 * William Carlos Williams, Imaginations (posthumous)

Other in English

 * J. P. Clark, Casualties: Poems 1966–68, Nigerian poet published in the United States

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:

Arabic language

 * Nizar Qabbani, Syrian:
 * Savage Poems
 * Book of Love
 * 100 Love Letters

Denmark

 * Thorkild Bjørnvig, a book of "collected or selected works"
 * Regin Dahl, Ærinde uden betydning
 * Ivan Malinovski, a book of "collected or selected works"
 * Jess Ørnsbo, a book of "collected or selected works"
 * Klaus Rifbjerg, Mytologi, Denmark

Canada

 * Gaston Miron, L'Homme Rapaillé
 * Yves Préfontaine:
 * Débâcle
 * À l'Orée des travaux
 * Fernand Dumont, Parler de septembre
 * Raoul Duguay, Manifeste de l'Infonie
 * Nicole Brossard, Suite logique
 * Louis-Philippe Hébert, Les Mangeurs de terre

France

 * M. Béalu, La Nuit nous garde
 * Alain Bosquet and Pierre Seghers, Poèmes de l'année
 * L. Brauquier, Feux d'épaves
 * Mohammed Dib, Formulaires
 * Emily Dickinson, Poésies complètes, translated from the original English by Guy Jean Forgue; Aubier-Flammarion
 * Pierre Emmanuel, pen name of Noël Mathieu, Jacob
 * Andre Frenaud, Depuis toujours déja
 * Eugene Guilleveic, Paroi
 * Michel Leiris, Mots sans mémoire
 * C. Le Quintrec, La Marche des arbres
 * M. Manoll, Incarnada
 * J.L. Moreau, Sous le masque des mots
 * J. Tardieu, Poèmes à jouer
 * Vandercammen, Horizon de la vigie

Germany

 * Paul Celan, Lightduress (Lichtzwang, Romanian, writing in German)

Hebrew

 * M. Temkin, Shirai Yerushalayim
 * A. Broides, Tahana ve-Derech
 * Z. Gilead, Or Hozer
 * Dan Pagis, Gilgul ("Transformations")
 * I. Shalev, Naar Shav Min ha-Tzava
 * Abba Kovner, Hupahba-Midbar
 * T. Carmi, Davar Ahed
 * Avot Yeshurun, Ze Shaim ha-Sefere

Italy

 * Carmelo Bene, L'orecchio mancante
 * Dino Buzzati, Poema a fumetti
 * Alfredo Giuliani, Il tautofono
 * Sandro Penna, Tutte le poesie
 * Nelo Risi, Di certe cose
 * Maria Luisa Spaziani, L'occhio del ciclone
 * Giovanni Testori, Erodiade

Norway

 * Rolf Jacobsen, Headlines
 * Stein Mehren, Aurora
 * Ragnvald Skrede, Lauvfall
 * Simen Skjønsberg, Flyttedag
 * Tarjei Vesaas, Liv ved straumen (posthumous)

Brazil

 * Augusto de Campos, Equivocábulos, collection of "semantic-visual texts, photo-poems, and 'Viagem via linguagem', a collapsible environment-poem resembling an architect's model"
 * Affonso Avila, Código de Minas
 * Silviano Santiago, Salto

Russian

 * Andrei Voznesenski, The Shadow of Sound
 * Y. Smelyakov, December
 * Boris Slutski, Tales for Today
 * Evgeni Vinokurov, Shows
 * Leonid Martynov, Peoples' Names
 * Leonid Vasilyev, Ognevistsa
 * Evgeni Yevtushenko, a collection, including some new poems and omitting some "controversial earlier ones"

Spain

 * Jorge Guillén, Obra poética
 * José Caballero Bonald, Vivar para contarlo ("Live to Tell It"), including "Zauberlehrling"

Peru

 * Washington Delgado, Un mundo dividado
 * C.G. Belli, Sextinas
 * J.G. Rose, Informe al rey
 * M. Martos, Cuaderno de quejas y contentamientos
 * C. Bustamante, El nombre de las cosas

Elsewhere in Latin America

 * Julio Cortázar, Último round, miscellany of stories, poems, essays and collage games (Argentina)
 * Alberto Girri, Antología temática (Argentina)
 * Alberto Vanasco, Canto rodado (Argentina)
 * I. López Vallecillo, Puro asombro (El Salvador)
 * Ernesto Cardenal, Salmos (Nicaragua)
 * R. Fernández Retamar, Que veremos arder (Cuba)
 * Nicanor Parra, Obra gruesa (Chile)
 * Enrique Lihn, La musiquilla de las pobres esferas (Chile)

Sweden

 * Werner Aspenström, Inre ("Inner")
 * Gören Sonnevi, Det Måste gå ("It Must Be Possible")
 * Maja Ekelöf, Rapport från en skurhink ("Report from a Scrub Bucket")
 * Henry Olsson, Vinlövsranka och hagtornskrans, a study of the poet Gustaf Fröding (died 1911)

Israel

 * Abraham Sutzkever, Ripened Faces
 * Yaakov Zvi Shargel, Sunny Doorsteps
 * Aryeh Shamri, Song in the Barn
 * David Rodin, Young and Younger, for young readers
 * Leizer Eichenrand, Thirst for Duration

United States

 * Joseph Rubeinstein, Exodus from Europe, third volume of a narrative trilogy
 * Wolf Pasmanik, My Poems
 * Kadya Molodovsky, Marzipans, for children and adults
 * Moshe Shifris, Under One Roof

Elsewhere

 * Melekh Ravitch, Post Scriptus (Canada)
 * Jacob Sternberg, Poem and Ballad on the Carpathians (France)
 * Izzy Kharik, With Body and Life (Russia)

Other languages

 * Luo Fu, River Without Banks, Chinese (Taiwan)
 * Rituraj, Kitna Thora Waqt; India, Hindi-language
 * Nirmalendu Goon, Huliya; Pakistan (Now Bangladesh), Bengali-language

Canada

 * See 1970 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

United Kingdom

 * Cholmondeley Award: Kathleen Raine, Douglas Livingstone, Edward Brathwaite
 * Eric Gregory Award: Helen Frye, Paul Mills, John Mole, Brian Morse, Alan Perry, Richard Tibbitts
 * Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Roy Fuller

United States

 * Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (later the post would be called "Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress"): William Stafford appointed this year.
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Richard Howard, Untitled Subjects
 * National Book Award for Poetry: Elizabeth Bishop, The Complete Poems
 * Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets: Howard Nemerov

France

 * Prix Max Jacob: Daniel Boulanger for Tchadiennes and Retouches
 * French Academy's Grand Prix de Poèsie: Jean Follain

Soviet Union

 * Lenin Prize: Nikolai Tikhonov

Births

 * February 27 – Rachel Mann, English trans woman poet and Anglican priest
 * September 10 – Phaswane Mpe (died 2004), South African novelist and poet
 * September 16 – Nick Sagan, American poet, novelist and screenwriter
 * September 24 – Gemma Moraleja Paz, Spanish poet and novelist
 * Also:
 * Malika Booker, British poet
 * Victoria Chang, American poet
 * Tim Kendall, English poet, editor, critic and academic
 * David Roderick, American poet
 * Faruk Šehić, Bosnian poet and fiction writer
 * Brenda Shaughnessy, Japanese-born American poet

Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * January 10 – Charles Olson, 59 (born 1910), American poet, of cancer
 * January 15 – Leah Goldberg, 58 (born 1911), Israeli poet who wrote in Hebrew
 * January 24 – Caresse Crosby, also known as "Mary Phelps Jacob", 78 (born 1891), American poet and New York socialite, who, in 1927, founded Black Sun Press with her husband Harry Crosby (also a poet) and who in 1910 invented the first modern bra to receive a patent and gain wide acceptance
 * February 4 – Louise Bogan, 72 (born 1897), American poet, United States Poet Laureate
 * February 19 – Edsel Ford, 41 (born 1928), American poet
 * March 26 – Rosa Zagnoni Marinoni, 82 (born 1888), American poet
 * March 28 – Nathan Alterman, 59 (born 1910), Israeli poet, journalist and translator
 * March 29 – Vera Brittain, 76 (born 1893) English novelist and poet
 * about April 20 – Paul Celan, 49 (born 1920), Romanian-born poet who wrote in German and became a French citizen, suicide
 * May 12 – Nelly Sachs, 78 (born 1891), German-Swedish poet and dramatist who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1966
 * June 2 – Giuseppe Ungaretti, 82 (born 1888), Italian modernist poet, journalist, essayist, critic and academic
 * June 18 – N. P. van Wyk Louw, 64 (born 1906), South African Afrikaans poet and critic
 * July 3 – James Douglas Morrison, 27
 * September 23 – John Gawsworth, 58 (born 1912), English poet, anthologist, Fitzrovian and King Juan I of Redonda
 * September 28 – John Dos Passos, 74 (born 1896), American novelist, poet and artist
 * November 25 – Yukio Mishima 三島 由紀夫, pen name of Kimitake Hiraoka 平岡 公威, 45 (born 1925), Japanese author, poet and playwright, by public ritual suicide
 * December 11 – Arthur Nortje, 27 (born 1942), South African poet, of a drug overdose
 * December 31 – Lorine Niedecker, 67 (born 1903), American Objectivist poet

Notes and references

 * 1971 Britannica Book of the Year (covering events of 1970), "Literature" article and "Obituaries of 1970" article; source of many of the books in the "Works published" list and some deaths.
 * Lal, P., Modern Indian Poetry in English: An Anthology & a Credo, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, second edition, 1971 (however, on page 597 an "editor's note" states contents "on the following pages are a supplement to the first edition" and is dated "1972"); hereafter: "P. Lal (1971)"