1964 in Poetry - Events

Events

• Among the many books of poetry published this year, Robert Lowell's For the Union Dead is greeted with particular acclaim. The book was received with "general jubilation" from critics, according to Raymond Walters Jr., associate editor of the New York Times Book Review. "These verses convinced many observers that its author was now the pre-eminent U.S. poet."
• The publication in the United Kingdom of The Complete Poems of D. H. Lawrence in two volumes is "a major publishing event of 1964".
• A surprise best-seller in the United Kingdom was John Lennon's In His Own Write, a compendium of nonsense poems, sketches and drawings by one of the Beatles.
• The "Shakespeare Quartercentenary", the 400th anniversary of the birth of William Shakespeare, is celebrated in lecture series, exhibitions, dramatic and musical programs and other events as well as special publications (Shakespeare issues and supplements), reprinting of standard works on the playwright and poet, and even commemorative postage stamps. The American Association of Advertising Agencies even suggests that Shakespeare quotations should be used in ads. Celebrations of various sorts occur in the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and elsewhere.
• The 75th birthday of Anna Akhmatova, who was severely persecuted during the Stalin era, was celebrated with special observances and the publication of new collections of her verse.
• Russian poet Joseph Brodsky is convicted of "parisitism" in a Soviet court, which sends him into exile near the Arctic Circle.
• Poetry Australia literary magazine founded