1931 in poetry

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

Events

Louis Zukofsky edits the February issue of Poetry magazine. The issue eventually will be recognized as the founding document of the Objectivist poets. It features poetry by Zukofsky, Charles Reznikoff, Carl Rakosi, George Oppen, Basil Bunting, William Carlos Williams, Kenneth Rexroth, and many others. Also in the issue: Zukofsky's essay "Sincerity and Objectification".
George Oppen and his wife, Mary Oppen found To Publishers in Le Beausset, France; Louis Zukofsky is editor.
Beacon magazine founded in Trinidad (lasts until 1933)

Works published in English

Canada

Wilson MacDonald, A Flagon Of Beauty. Toronto: Pine Tree Publishing.
Marjorie Pickthall, The Naiad and Five Other Poems (Toronto: Ryerson)

India , in English

A.R. Chida, editor, An Anthology of Indo-Anglian Verse with an Introductory Note to Each Set of Selections, Hyderabad: A. R. Chida, 113 pages; anthology; Indian poetry in English

United Kingdom

John Betjeman, Mount Zion; or, In Touch with the Infinite
Laurence Binyon, Collected Poems
Edmund Blunden: Themis (editor) The Poems of Wilfred Owen
Robert Bridges, Shorter Poems
Roy Campbell, The Georgiad, a satire openly attacking the Bloomsbury Group; a South African native published in the United Kingdom
C. Day-Lewis, From Feathers to Iron
Lawrence Durrell, Quaint Fragments
T. S. Eliot: Coriolan Triumphal March
John Gawsworth Confession: verses Fifteen Poems: Three Friends Snowballs
Robert Graves, Poems 1926–1930
Aldous Huxley: The Cicadas, and Other Poems The World of Light; A comedy, a verse drama performed March 30
John Lehmann, A Garden Revisited, and Other Poems
Æ, pen name of George William Russell, Vale, and Other Poems
Osbert Sitwell, The Collected Satires and Poems
William Soutar, Conflict
Arthur Symons, Jezbel Mort, and Other Poems (sic)
Humbert Wolfe, Snow

United States

Franklin P. Adams, Christopher Columbus
Conrad Aiken: The Coming Forth by Day of Osris Jones Preludes for Memnon
E. E. Cummings, W (ViVa)
H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Red Roses for Bronze
Langston Hughes, The Negro Mother
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Fatal Interview
Ogden Nash: Free Wheeling Hard Lines
Dorothy Parker, Death and Taxes
Edward Arlington Robinson, Mathias at the Door
Wallace Stevens, Harmonium, including "Le Monocle de Mon Oncle", "The Comedian as the Letter C", "The Emperor of Ice Cream", "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird", "Peter Quince at the Clavier", "Sunday Morning", "Sea Surface Full of Clouds" and "In the Clear Season of Grapes"), Knopf, revised from 1923 edition
Mark Van Doren, Jonathan Gentry
Yvor Winters, The Journey
Gamel Woolsey, Middle Earth

Other in English

Norman Cameron, Guianese Poetry: 1831–1931
Kenneth Slessor, Harley Matthews and Colin Simpson, Trio: A Book of Poems, Sydney: Sunnybrook Press, Australia
Gertrude Stein, Before the Flowers of Friendship Faded Friendship Faded: written on a poem by Georges Hugnet, American poet published in France

Works published in other languages

France

Guillaume Apollinaire, pen name of Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky, Le condor et le morpion, posthumously published (died 1918)
Louis Aragon: Hourra l'Oural, influenced by the author's conversion to Marxism Persécuté Persécuteur
André Breton, L'union libre
Francis Jammes, L'Arc-en-ciel des amours, Paris: Bloud et Gay
Pierre Jean Jouve, Les Noces
Tristan Tzara, pen name of Sami Rosenstock, L'Homme approximatif

Indian subcontinent

Including all of the British colonies that later became India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Listed alphabetically by first name, regardless of surname:

Atul Prasad Sen, Gitigunja, complete collection of songs by this Bengali poet and composer
Bal Krisna Rav, Kaumudi, Indian, Hindi-language
Bhagavadacharya, Mohanapancadhydyi, Sanskrit poem on Mahatma Gandhi
Chanda Jha, Candra Padyavali, edited by Baladev Mishra, Maithili
D. K. Kelkar, Kavyalocan, a treatise in Marathi on literary theory; discusses the nature of poetry, figures of speech, the nature of poetic pleasure and Indian literary concepts
K. V. Simon, Veda Viharam, long poem based on the book of Genesis; India, Malayalam language
Mahjoor, Nav Baharo Myani Locaro Ho, Kashmiri
Mayadhar Mansinha, Dhupa, poems in this collection remained very popular as of the mid-1990s; Oriya
Mohan Singh Diwana, Jagat Tamasa, Punjabi (a 1927 novel by Charan Singh Sahid has the same title)
Raja K. K., Baspanjali, Malayalam work by a poet of the Vallathol school
Siyaram Sharan Gupta, Atmostsarga, on the self-sacrifice of Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi in the cause of communal peace; Hindi
Tallapragada Visvasundaramma, Ratri, including many patriotic poems; Telugu
Umashankar Joshi, Vishwashanti, also spelled "Visvasanti" (Indian, writing in Gujarati)
V. Seetharamayya, Gitagalu, the author's first book of poetry, with navodaya lyrics more intellectual than most; Kannada

Spanish language

Spain

Federico García Lorca, Poema del cante jondo ("Poem of Deep Song")
Pedro Salinas, Fábula y signo ("Fable and Sign")
José Moreno Villa, Carambas

Latin America

Enrique Peña Barrenechea, Cinema de los sentidos puros, Peru
Vicente Huidobro, Altazor, Chilean poet published in Spain

Other languages

Vladimir Mayakovsky, Кем Быть (Kem byt'?, "Whom Shall I Become?"), Soviet Russia, published posthumously, for children
Giorgos Seferis, Στροφή ("Strophe") (Greece)

Awards and honors

Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Robert Frost: Collected Poems

Births

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

January 6 Juan Goytisolo (died 2017), Spanish poet, essayist and novelist P. J. Kavanagh (died 2015), English poet, lecturer, actor and broadcaster
January 14 – Ahmed Faraz, pseudonym of Syed Ahmad Shah (died 2008), Pakistani Urdu-language poet, son of Agha Syed Muhammad Shah Bark Kohati, a leading traditional poet
February 2 – Judith Viorst, American author known for her children's books and poetry
February 16 – Makoto Ōoka 大岡信 (died 2017), Japanese poet and literary critic
April 9 – Gerard Benson (died 2014), English poet
April 15 – Tomas Tranströmer (died 2015), Swedish writer, poet and translator
April 19 – Etheridge Knight (died 1991), African-American poet
May 2 – Ruth Fainlight, American poet, short story writer, translator and librettist
May 16 – Peter Levi (died 2000), English poet, professor of poetry at the University of Oxford, Jesuit priest, archaeologist, travel writer, biographer, scholar, prolific reviewer and critic
May 27 – O. N. V. Kurup (died 2016), Indian, Malayalam-language poet
June 5 – James Fenton (died 2021), Northern Irish Ulster Scots dialect poet
June 6 – Kiki Dimoula, Greek poet (died 2020)
June 7 – Okot p'Bitek (died 1982), Ugandan poet
June 13 – Jay Macpherson (died 2012), Canadian lyric poet and scholar; she is a member of the "mythopoeic school of poetry"
June 20 – Urszula Kozioł (died 2025), Polish poet, writer, and dramatist
June 21 – Patricia Goedicke (died 2006), American poet
July 29 – C. Narayana Reddy (died 2017), Indian poet
July 28 – Alan Brownjohn, English poet and novelist
August 11 – Delia Domínguez (died 2022), Chilean poet
September 30 – Jansug Charkviani (died 2017), Georgian poet and politician
November 8 – Jack Collom (died 2017), American poet
December 15 – Shuntarō Tanikawa 谷川俊太郎, Japanese poet and translator (surname: Tanikawa)
Unknown date – Sonja Dunn, Canadian poet

Deaths

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

March 16 – Harold Edward Monro, 54, British poet, proprietor of the Poetry Bookshop in London
March 31 – Puran Singh (born 1881), Indian, writing Indian poetry in English
April 2 – Katharine Tynan, 70 (born 1861), Irish poet, novelist and writer who, after her marriage in 1898, usually wrote under the names "Katharine Tynan Hinkson", "Katharine Tynan-Hinkson" or "Katharine Hinkson-Tynan"
April 10 – Khalil Gibran, 48, poet, artist and writer born in Lebanon who spent much of his productive life in the United States
November 19 – Xu Zhimo, 34 (born 1897), Chinese poet, in aviation accident
December 5 – (Nicholas) Vachel Lindsay, 42 (born 1879), American poet and early advocate of jazz poetry, suicide by poison