Major poetry-related events that took place worldwide during 2018 are outlined below, in various different sections. This includes poetry books released during the year in different languages, major literary awards, poetry festivals and events, besides anniversaries and deaths of renowned poets, etc. Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance,
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
or
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
).
Events
*
August 11
Events Pre-1600
* 3114 BC – The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, used by several pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations, notably the Maya, begins.
* 2492 BC – Traditional date of the defeat of Bel by Hayk, progenitor and foun ...
– Writer V. S. Naipaul, on his deathbed in London, is read
Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (; 6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's ...
's poem "
Crossing the Bar
"Crossing the Bar" is an 1889 elegiac poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The narrator uses an extended metaphor to compare death with crossing the "sandbar" between the river of life, with its outgoing "flood", and the ocean that lies beyond death, ...
" by newspaper editor
Geordie Greig
George Carron Greig (born 16 December 1960), known as Geordie Greig, is an English journalist. He has been the editor-in-chief of ''The Independent'' since January 2023, and was the editor of the ''Daily Mail'' from 2018 to 2021 and the ''Mail ...
Judith Beveridge
Judith Beveridge (born 1956) is a contemporary Australian poet, editor and academic. She is a recipient of the Christopher Brennan Award.
Biography
Judith Beveridge was born in London, England, arriving in Australia with her parents in 1960. S ...
, ''Sun Music: New and Selected Poems''
* Ken Bolton, ''Starting at Basheer's''
* Sarah Day, ''Towards Light & Other Poems''
* Paul Hetherington, ''Moonlight on Oleander''
* John Mateer, ''João''
* Tim Metcalf, ''The Underwritten Plain''
* Tracy Ryan, ''The Water Bearer''
Leonard Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen (September 21, 1934November 7, 2016) was a Canadian songwriter, singer, poet, and novelist. Themes commonly explored throughout his work include faith and mortality, isolation and depression, betrayal and redemption, soc ...
Raymond Antrobus
Raymond Antrobus is a British poet, educator and writer who has been performing poetry since 2007. In March 2019, he won the Ted Hughes Award for new work in poetry.Jay Bernard, ''Surge''
*
John Cooper Clarke
John Cooper Clarke (born 25 January 1949) is an English performance poet and comedian who styled himself as a "punk poet" in the late 1970s. In the 1970s and early 1980s, he released several albums and performed on stage with punk and post-punk ...
, ''The Luckiest Guy Alive''
*
Salena Godden
Salena Godden is an English poet, author, activist, broadcaster, memoirist and essayist.
Born in Hastings, UK, of Jamaican-Irish heritage, Godden based in London. Widely anthologised, she has published several books. She has also written for ...
, ''Pessimism is for Lightweights: 13 pieces of courage and resistance''
* Susannah Hart, ''Out of True''
* Zaffar Kunial, ''Us''
* Andrew McMillan, ''playtime''
* J. O. Morgan, ''Assurances'' (Scottish poet published in England)
*
Robin Robertson
Robin Robertson (born in 1955) is a Scottish poet.
Biography
Robertson was brought up on the north-east coast of Scotland, but has spent most of his professional life in London. After working as an editor at Penguin Books and Secker and War ...
, ''
The Long Take
''The Long Take, or A Way to Lose More Slowly'', known simply as The Long Take, is a novel in narrative poetry form with noir style by Scottish poet Robin Robertson. It was published in 2018 by Picador. The story-line is set in United States po ...
'' (novel partly in verse; Scottish poet published in England)
* Richard Scott, ''Soho''
* Hannah Sullivan, ''Three Poems''
Northern Ireland
Scotland
Anthologies in the United Kingdom
* Fiona Waters, ''I am the Seed that Grew the Tree: A Nature Poem for Every Day of the Year ''
Criticism, scholarship and biography in the United Kingdom
United States
''Alphabetical listing by author name''
*
Elizabeth Acevedo
Elizabeth Acevedo is an American poet and author. In September 2022, the Poetry Foundation named her the year's Young People's Poet Laureate.
Acevedo is the author of the young adult novels '' The Poet X'', '' With the Fire on High'', and ''Clap W ...
Milkweed Editions
Milkweed Editions is an independent nonprofit literary publisher that originated from the ''Milkweed Chronicle'' literary and arts journal established in Minneapolis in 1979. The journal ceased and the business transitioned to publishing. It releas ...
)
*
Duy Doan
Duy Doan is an American poet. In 2017, his manuscript, '' We Play a Game'', was selected by Carl Phillips for the Yale Younger Poets Prize; the book was subsequently published by Yale University Press in March of 2018.
Early life
Doan was bor ...
Yale University Press
Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day and Clarence Day, grandsons of Benjamin Day, and became a department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and ope ...
)
*
Jason Reynolds
Jason Reynolds (born December 6, 1983) is an American author of Novelist, novels and poetry for Young adult literature, young adult and Middle grade literature, middle grade audiences. Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in neighboring Oxon Hill ...
, ''For Every One''
Anthologies in the United States
Criticism, scholarship and biography in the United States
List of poetry awards
Major international awards
* Struga Poetry Evenings, Golden Wreath of Struga Poetry Evenings
* Bridges of Struga (for a debuting author at Struga Poetry Evenings)
* Griffin Poetry Prize (The international prize)
* International Hippocrates Priz ...
Awards announced this year:
International
*
Struga Poetry Evenings
Struga Poetry Evenings (SPE) (, СВП; tr. ''Struški večeri na poezijata'', ''SVP'') is an international poetry festival held annually in Struga, North Macedonia. During the several decades of its existence, the Festival has awarded its most ...
Governor General's Awards
The Governor General's Awards are a collection of annual awards presented by the governor general of Canada, recognizing distinction in numerous academic, artistic, and social fields.
The first award was conceived and inaugurated in 1937 by the ...
Griffin Poetry Prize
The Griffin Poetry Prize is a Canadian poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin.
Before 2022, two separate awards went to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language. I ...
:
**Canada:
Billy-Ray Belcourt
Billy-Ray Belcourt is a poet, scholar, and author from the Driftpile Cree Nation.
Belcourt's works encompass a variety of topics and themes, including decolonial love, grief, intimacy and queer sexuality, and the role of Indigenous women in so ...
, ''This Wound Is a World''
**International:
Susan Howe
Susan Howe (born June 10, 1937) is an American poet, scholar, essayist, and critic, who has been closely associated with the Language poets, among other poetry movements.
, ''Debths''
**Lifetime Recognition Award (presented by the Griffin trustees):
Ana Blandiana
Ana Blandiana (; pen name of Otilia Valeria Coman; born 25 March 1942) is a Romanian poet, essayist, and political figure. She took her name after Blandiana, near Vințu de Jos, Alba County, her mother's home village.
In October 2017, she was ...
Gerald Lampert Award
The Gerald Lampert Memorial Award is an annual literary award presented by the League of Canadian Poets to the best volume of poetry published by a first-time poet. It is presented in honour of poetry promoter Gerald Lampert. Each winner receive ...
Pat Lowther Award
The Pat Lowther Memorial Award is an annual Canadian literary award presented by the League of Canadian Poets to the year's best book of poetry by a Canadian woman. The award was established in 1980 to honour poet Pat Lowther, who was murdered by ...
:
Lesley Belleau
Lesley Belleau is an Anishinaabe writer from Canada. She is most noted for her 2017 poetry collection ''Indianland'', which won the Pat Lowther Award in 2018.Prix Alain-Grandbois
The Prix Alain-Grandbois or ''Alain Grandbois Prize'' is awarded each year to an author for a book of poetry.
Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize
The Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, established in 1986, is awarded annually to the best collection of poetry by a resident of British Columbia, Canada.
One of the BC and Yukon Book Prizes, the award was originally known as the B.C. Prize for Poet ...
Prix Émile-Nelligan The Prix Émile-Nelligan is a literary award given annually by the Fondation Émile-Nelligan to a North American French language poet under the age of 35. It was named in honour of the Quebec poet Émile Nelligan and was first awarded in 1979, the ...
Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement
Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement is a List of New Zealand literary awards, New Zealand literary award established in 2003 by the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa (Creative New Zealand), the national arts development agenc ...
Cholmondeley Award
The Cholmondeley Awards ( ) are annual awards for poetry given by the Society of Authors in the United Kingdom. Awards honour distinguished poets, from a fund endowed by the Dowager Marchioness of Cholmondeley in 1966. Since 1991 the award has bee ...
:
Vahni Capildeo
Vahni Anthony Ezekiel Capildeo (born
Surya Vahni Priya Capildeo, 1973) is a Trinidad and Tobago-born British writer, and a member of the extended Capildeo family that has produced notable Trinidadian politicians and writers (including V. S. Nai ...
,
Kate Clanchy
Kate Clanchy MBE (born 1965) is a British poet, freelance writer and teacher.
Education and early life
She was born in 1965 in Glasgow to medieval historian Michael Clanchy and teacher Joan Clanchy (née Milne). She was educated at George Wa ...
,
Linton Kwesi Johnson
Linton Kwesi Johnson Order of Distinction, OD (born 24 August 1952), also known as LKJ, is a Jamaica-born, British-based dub poetry, dub poet and activist. In 2002, he became the second living poet, and the only black one, to be published in th ...
,
Daljit Nagra
Daljit Nagra (born 1966) is a British poet whose debut collection, ''Look We Have Coming to Dover!'' was published by Faber in 2007. Nagra's poems relate to the experience of Indians born in the UK (especially Indian Sikhs), and often employ l ...
, Zoë Skoulding
* Costa Award (formerly "Whitbread Awards") for poetry:
** Shortlist: Zaffar Kunial, ''Us''; J. O. Morgan, ''Assurances''; Richard Scott, ''Soho''; Hannah Sullivan, ''Three Poems''
* English Association's Fellows' Poetry Prizes:
*
Eric Gregory Award
The Eric Gregory Award is a literary award given annually by the Society of Authors for a collection by United Kingdom poets under the age of 30. The award was founded in 1960 by Dr. Eric Gregory to support and encourage young poets.
Past winne ...
(for a collection of poems by a poet under the age of 30):
*
Forward Poetry Prize
The Forward Prizes for Poetry are major British awards for poetry, presented annually at a public ceremony in London. They were founded in 1992 by William Sieghart with the aim of celebrating excellence in poetry and increasing its audience. The ...
:
**Best Collection:
***Shortlist:
**Best First Collection:
***Shortlist:
**Best Poem:
***Shortlist:
* Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize for poetry:
**Shortlist:
* Manchester Poetry Prize:
* National Poet of Wales:
Ifor ap Glyn
Ifor ap Glyn (born 1961) is a Welsh television presenter and Welsh-language poet.Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry
The King's Gold Medal for Poetry (known as Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry when the monarch is female) is awarded for a book of verse published by someone in any of the Commonwealth realms. Originally the award was open only to British subjects liv ...
:
Simon Armitage
Simon Robert Armitage (born 26 May 1963) is an English poet, playwright, musician and novelist. He was appointed Poet Laureate on 10 May 2019. He is professor of poetry at the University of Leeds.
He has published over 20 collections of poetr ...
* T. S. Eliot Prize (United Kingdom and Ireland): Hannah Sullivan, ''Three Poems''
**Shortlist (announced in November 2018): 2018 Short List
* ''The Times'' / Stephen Spender Prize for Poetry Translation:
United States awards and honors
*
Arab American Book Award
The Arab American Book Award, established in 2006, is an annual literary award to celebrate and support the research of, and the written work of, Arab Americans and their culture. The Arab American Book Award encourages the publication and excelle ...
(The George Ellenbogen Poetry Award):
**Honorable Mentions:
*
Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize
The Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize is a major United States, American literary award for a first full-length book of poetry in the English language.
This prize of the University of Pittsburgh Press in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Penn ...
:
*
Anisfield-Wolf Book Award The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award is an American literary award dedicated to honoring written works that make important contributions to the understanding of racism and the appreciation of the rich diversity of human culture. Established in 1935 by Clev ...
Alice James Books
Alice James Books is an American non-profit poetry press located in New Gloucester, Maine.
History and mission
"Alice James Books was founded as a co-operative press in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge, MA in 1973 by five women and two men: ...
:
*
Bollingen Prize
The Bollingen Prize for Poetry is a literary honor bestowed on an American poet. Every two years, the award recognizes a poet for best new volume of work or lifetime achievement. It is awarded without nominations or submissions by the Beinecke R ...
Lambda Literary Award
Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary Foundation, Lambda Literary to recognize the crucial role LGBTQ+ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the very best in LGBTQ+ literatur ...
:
** Gay Poetry:
** Lesbian Poetry:
*
Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize
The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreac ...
Los Angeles Times Book Prize
Since 1980, the ''Los Angeles Times'' has awarded a set of annual book prizes. The ''Los Angeles Times'' Book Prize currently has nine categories: biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award added in 1991), his ...
:
**Finalists:
*
National Book Award for Poetry
The National Book Award for Poetry is one of five annual National Book Awards, which are given by the National Book Foundation to recognize outstanding literary work by US citizens. They are awards "by writers to writers".
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".The New Criterion
''The New Criterion'' is a New York–based monthly literary magazine and journal of artistic and cultural criticism, edited by Roger Kimball (editor and publisher) and James Panero (executive editor). It has sections for criticism of poetry ...
'' Poetry Prize:
*
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually for Letters, Drama, and Music. The award came five years after the first Pulitzers were awarded in other categories; Joseph Pulitzer's will had not ment ...
(United States):
*
Wallace Stevens Award
The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreac ...
:
*
Whiting Awards
The Whiting Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama
Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, ...
:
*
PEN Award for Poetry in Translation The PEN Award for Poetry in Translation is given by PEN America (formerly PEN American Center) to honor a poetry translation published in the preceding year. The award should not be confused with the PEN Translation Prize. The award is one of many ...
Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize
The Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize is awarded annually by The Poetry Foundation, which also publishes ''Poetry'' magazine. The prize was established in 1986 by Ruth Lilly. It honors a living U.S. poet whose "lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordin ...
:
*
Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award
The Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Awards are a pair of American prizes based at Claremont Graduate University. They are given to poets for their collections of poetry written in the English language, by a citizen or legal resident alien of the U ...
Yanyi
Yanyi is an American poet and critic. He won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize in 2018 for his first book, '' The Year of Blue Water''.
Life
Yanyi graduated from Columbia University in 2013. He is an associate editor at Foundry and an MFA ...
for ''
The Year of Blue Water
''The Year of Blue Water'' is a 2019 debut poetry collection by American poet Yanyi, published by Yale University Press. It was the winner of the 2018 Yale Series of Younger Poets and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poet ...
'' (Judge:
Carl Phillips
Carl Phillips (born 23 July 1959) is an American writer and poet. He is a professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis. In 2023, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his '' Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020.''
...
)
From the Poetry Society of America
*
Frost Medal
Frost is a thin layer of ice on a solid surface, which forms from water vapor that deposits onto a freezing surface. Frost forms when the air contains more water vapor than it can normally hold at a specific temperature. The process is similar ...
:
Ron Padgett
Ron Padgett (born June 17, 1942) is an American poet, essayist, fiction writer, translator, and a member of the New York School (art), New York School. ''Great Balls of Fire'', Padgett's first full-length collection of poems, was published in 1969 ...
*
Shelley Memorial Award The Shelley Memorial Award of the Poetry Society of America, was established by the will of Mary P. Sears, and named after the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. The prize is given to a living American poet selected with reference to genius and need, and is ...
:
Ntozake Shange
Ntozake Shange ( ; FilmReference.com. Retrieved October 27, 2018. October 18, 1948 – October 27, 2018 ...
*
Writer Magazine/Emily Dickinson Award
The Writer Magazine/Emily Dickinson Award is given once a year to a member of the Poetry Society of America "to honor the memory and poetry of Emily Dickinson, for a poem inspired by Dickinson though not necessarily in her style.""PSA Annual Awar ...
:
* Lyric Poetry Award:
* Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award:
Victoria Chang
Victoria Chang is an American poet, writer, editor, and critic. She has experimented with different styles of writing, including writing poems shaped in obituaries, for parts of her life, including her parents and herself, in ''OBIT'', letters in ...
* Louise Louis/Emily F. Bourne Student Poetry Award:
* George Bogin Memorial Award:
* Robert H. Winner Memorial Award:
* Cecil Hemley Memorial Award:
*
Norma Farber First Book Award
The Norma Farber First Book Award is given by the Poetry Society of America "for a first book of original poetry written by an American and published in either a hard or soft cover in a standard edition during the calendar year". Poetry Society of ...
: Eve L. Ewing
* Lucille Medwick Memorial Award:
*
William Carlos Williams Award
The William Carlos Williams Award is given out by the Poetry Society of America for a poetry book published by a small press, non-profit, or university press.
The award is endowed by the family and friends of Geraldine Clinton Little, a poet an ...
ear
In vertebrates, an ear is the organ that enables hearing and (in mammals) body balance using the vestibular system. In humans, the ear is described as having three parts: the outer ear, the middle ear and the inner ear. The outer ear co ...
in poetry" article:
*
January 3
Events Pre-1600
*AD 69, 69 – The Roman legions on the Rhine refuse to declare their allegiance to Galba, instead proclaiming their legate, Aulus Vitellius, as emperor.
* 250 – Emperor Decius orders everyone in the Roman Empire (ex ...
–
Keorapetse Kgositsile
Keorapetse William Kgositsile (19 September 1938 – 3 January 2018), also known by his pen name Bra Willie, was a South African Tswana people, Tswana poet, journalist and political activist. An influential member of the African National Congr ...
(b.
1938
Events
January
* January 1 – state-owned enterprise, State-owned railway networks are created by merger, in France (SNCF) and the Netherlands (Nederlandse Spoorwegen – NS).
* January 20 – King Farouk of Egypt marries Saf ...
),
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
n Poet Laureate
*
February 12
Events Pre-1600
* 1096 – Pope Urban II confirms the foundation of the abbey of La Roë under Robert of Arbrissel as a community of canons regular.
* 1404 – The Italian professor Galeazzo di Santa Sofia performed the first post- ...
1939
This year also marks the start of the World War II, Second World War, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history.
Events
Events related to World War II have a "WWII" prefix.
January
* January 1
** Coming into effect in Nazi Ger ...
),
Iraq
Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...
i poet
July – December
*
August 5
Events Pre-1600
* AD 25 – Guangwu claims the throne as Emperor of China, restoring the Han dynasty after the collapse of the short-lived Xin dynasty.
* 70 – Fires resulting from the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem are ...
1952
Events January–February
* January 26 – Cairo Fire, Black Saturday in Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses.
* February 6
** Princess Elizabeth, ...
), Irish poet
*
October 22
Events Pre-1600
* 451 – The Chalcedonian Creed, regarding the divine and human nature of Jesus, is adopted by the Council of Chalcedon, an ecumenical council.
* 794 – Japanese Emperor Kanmu relocates his empire's capital to H ...
1928
Events January
* January – British bacteriologist Frederick Griffith reports the results of Griffith's experiment, indirectly demonstrating that DNA is the genetic material.
* January 1 – Eastern Bloc emigration and defection: Boris B ...
), Australian poet, journalist and expert in Arab culture
*
October 27
Events Pre-1600
*312 – Constantine the Great is said to have received his famous Vision of Constantine, Vision of the Cross.
*1275 – Traditional founding of the city of Amsterdam.
*1524 – French troops Italian campaign of 152 ...
–
Ntozake Shange
Ntozake Shange ( ; FilmReference.com. Retrieved October 27, 2018. October 18, 1948 – October 27, 2018 ...
(b.
1948
Events January
* January 1
** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated.
** The current Constitutions of Constitution of Italy, Italy and of Constitution of New Jersey, New Jersey (both later subject to amendment) ...
), American playwright and poet
*
November 22
Events Pre-1600
* 498 – After the death of Anastasius II, Symmachus is elected Pope in the Lateran Palace, while Laurentius is elected Pope in Santa Maria Maggiore.
* 845 – The first duke of Brittany, Nominoe, defeats the Fran ...
–
Judith Rodriguez
Judith Catherine Rodriguez (13 February 1936 — 22 November 2018) was an Australian poet. She was a recipient of the Christopher Brennan Award.
Life
Rodriguez was born Judith Catherine Green in Perth and grew up in Brisbane. She was educate ...
, (b.
1936
Events January–February
* January 20 – The Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne of the United Kingdom as King Edward VIII, following the death of his father, George V, at Sandringham House.
* January 28 – Death and state funer ...
), Australian poet and academic
See also
*
Poetry
Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...
*
List of years in poetry
This article gives a chronological list of years in poetry. These pages supplement the List of years in literature pages with a focus on events in the history of poetry.
Before 1000 BC
* – '' Kesh Temple Hymn''
* – Enheduanna, ''The Exalta ...
*
List of poetry awards
Major international awards
* Struga Poetry Evenings, Golden Wreath of Struga Poetry Evenings
* Bridges of Struga (for a debuting author at Struga Poetry Evenings)
* Griffin Poetry Prize (The international prize)
* International Hippocrates Priz ...