1946 in poetry

Events

• W.H. Auden becomes a U.S. citizen
• Ezra Pound brought back to the United States on treason charges, but found unfit to face trial because of insanity and sent to St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C., where he remained for 12 years (to 1958).
• Upon learning about Isaiah Berlin's visit to Russian poet Anna Akhmatova this year, Stalin's associate Andrei Zhdanov, with the approval of the Soviet Central Committee, issued the "Zhdanov decree" denouncing her as a "half harlot, half nun", and had her poems banned from publication. The 1946 resolution of the Central Committee was directed against two literary magazines, Zvezda and Leningrad, which had published supposedly apolitical, "bourgeois", individualistic works of Akhmatova and the satirist Mikhail Zoshchenko. In time Akhmatova's son would spend his youth in Stalinist gulags, and she would resort to publishing several poems in praise of Stalin to secure his release.

Works published

• Cleanth Brooks, The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry
• Roy Campbell, Talking Bronco
• Walter De la Mare, The Traveller
• H.D., "The Flowering of the Rod", the final part of Trilogy, a three-part poem on the experience of the blitz in wartime London
• Robert Lowell, Lord Weary's Castle
• Lorine Niedecker, New Goose, her first poetry collection
• Henry Reed, A Map of Verona, including "Naming of Parts"
• Dylan Thomas, Deaths and Entrances, including "Fern Hill" and "A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London"

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"): Karl Shapiro appointed this year
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: No award given
• Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets: Edgar Lee Masters

Births

• August 5 — Ron Silliman, American poet
• October 28 — Sharon Thesen, Canadian poet
• December 20 — Andrei Codrescu, a Romanian-born American poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and commentator for National Public Radio

Deaths

• January 9 — Countee Cullen, 42, African American poet
• March 1 — Adriana Porter, 89, Wiccan poet
• May 25 — Ernest Rhys, 87, British poet, author, novelist, essayist best known for his role as founding editor of the Everyman's Library series of affordable classics
• July 8 — Orrick Glenday Johns, 59, American poet and playwright
• July 27 — Gertrude Stein, 73, poet and dramatist, of cancer

See also

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