1984 in poetry

All you want to know about 1984 in poetry

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

List of years in poetry (table)
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December 19 - Philip Larkin turns down the British Poet Laureateship, and Ted Hughes becomes Poet Laureate.

Listed by nation where the work was first published and again by the poet's native land, if different; substantially revised works listed separately:

Roo Borson, The Whole Night, Coming Home, ISBN 0-7710-1579-8 (nominated for a Governor General's Award) American-Canadian
Paulette Jiles, Celestial Navigation
Michael Ondaatje, Secular Love, Toronto: Coach House Press, ISBN 0889102880, ISBN 0393019918 ; New York: W. W. Norton, 1985^[1]

Fleur Adcock, editor, Oxford Book of Contemporary New Zealand Poetry
Charles Brasch, Collected Poems, Auckland: Oxford University Press, posthumous^[2]
Alan Brunton, And She Said, New York:Red Mole^[3]
Lauris Edmond, Selected Poems, winner of the Commonwealth Poetry Prize in 1985^[4]
Bill Manhire, Zoetropes: Poems 1972-82, New Zealand
Cilla McQueen, Anti Gravity^[5]
Ian Wedde, New Zealand:
- Georgicon
- Tales of Gotham City

Peter Ackroyd, T. S. Eliot: A Life (biography)
James Fenton, Children in Exile: Poems 1968-1984 Salamander Press version, poems from this volume were combined with those from The Memory of War to make the Penguin volume titled The Memory of War and Children in Exile; that combined volume was published in the United States, also under the title Children in Exile^[6]
Seamus Heaney Northern Ireland native at this time living in the United States:
- Station Island, Faber & Faber,
- Verses for a Fordham Commencement, Nadja Press
- Hailstones, Gallery Press
Grace Nichols, The Fat Black Woman's Poems, Virago
Craig Raine, Rich

John Ashbery, A Wave, awarded the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize and the Bollingen Prize
Charles Bernstein and Bruce Andrews, The L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Book, "selected" pieces from the 13 issues of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E magazine (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press)
Joseph Brodsky, To Urania
Alan Brunton, And She Said, Red Mole, book by a New Zealand poet published in the United States^[7]
Louise Erdrich, Jacklight
Seamus Heaney Northern Ireland native at this time living in the United States:
- Station Island, Faber & Faber,
- Verses for a Fordham Commencement, Nadja Press
- Hailstones, Gallery Press* Denise Levertov, Breathing the Water, her 19th book of poetry
Sharon Olds, The Dead and the Living
Michael Palmer, First Figure (North Point Press)
Molly Peacock, Raw Heaven
Kenneth Rexroth, Selected Poems
Rosmarie Waldrop, Differences for Four Hands (Singing Horse)

Robert Gray, The Skylight, Australia
Seamus Heaney, Station Island, Ireland
Thomas McCarthy, The Non-Aligned Storyteller, Anvil Press, London, Ireland^[8]
Chris Wallace-Crabbe, D. Goodman and D.J. Hearn, editors, Clubbing of the Gunfire: 101 Australia War Poems, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, anthology

Matilde Camus, Raíz del recuerdo ("Root of remembrance"), Spain
Odysseus Elytis, Ημερολόγιο ενός αθέατου Απριλίου ("Diary of an Invisible April"), Greece

Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Arthur Smith, Elegy on Independence Day
Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: Gjertrud Schnackenberg, "Imaginary Prisons", and (separately) Sharon Ben-Tov, "Carillon for Cambridge Women"
Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (later the post would be called "Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress"): Robert Fitzgerald appointed this year in a health-limited capacity, but was not present at the Library of Congress.
Frost Medal: Jack Stadler
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Mary Oliver: American Primitive
Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets: Richmond Lattimore and Robert Francis

Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:

February 6 – Jorge Guillén
February 17 – Jesse Stuart, 76 (born 1906), American, from a stroke
February 26 – Richard Lattimore, 77, of cancer
April 15 – Sir William Empson, 77
May 19 – Sir John Betjeman, 77 (born 1906), of Parkinson's disease
July 2 – George Oppen, 76 (born 1908), of Alzheimer's disease
September 29 – Hal Porter, Australian writer, novelist, playwright and poet, at 73
December 14 – Vicente Aleixandre, Spanish poet
date not known – Richard Brautigan 49, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The exact date of his suicide is unknown, but it is speculated that Brautigan ended his life on September 14. His body was not found until October 25.

^ Web page titled "Archive: Michael Ondaatje (1943- )" at the Poetry Foundation website, accessed May 7, 2008
^ Web page titled "Charles Brasch: New Zealand Literature File" at the University of Auckland Library website, accessed April 26, [[2008
^ Robinson, Roger and Wattie, Nelson, The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, 1998, pp. 75-76, "Alan Brunton" article by Peter Simpson
^ Robinson, Roger and Wattie, Nelson, The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, 1998, "Lauris Edmond" article
^ Cilla McQueen - NZ Literature File - LEARN - The University Of Auckland Library
^ [1]Web page titled "Books by Fenton" at the James Fenton Web site, accessed October 11, 2007
^ Robinson, Roger and Wattie, Nelson, The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, 1998, pp. 75-76, "Alan Brunton" article by Peter Simpson
^ Web page titled "Thomas McCarthy" at the Poetry International Website, accessed May 2, 2008