— Opening lines from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot, first published this year
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).
Events
February 2
Who Goes with Fergus? by W. B. Yeats (first published in 1892) is the song that haunts James Joyce's autobiographical character Stephen Dedalus in the novel Ulysses, first published complete in book form today. Stephen sings it to his mother as she lies dying, and her ghost returns to taunt him with it. The poem is Joyce's favorite lyric, and he has composed his own musical setting. In a "savage creative storm" of less than three weeks beginning today at the Château de Muzot in Switzerland, Rainer Maria Rilke writes his Sonnets to Orpheus (Die Sonette an Orpheus) and completes his Duino Elegies (Duineser Elegien). April – The Fugitive is established in Nashville, Tennessee, by John Crowe Ransom and other members of the Vanderbilt University English faculty who become known collectively as the Fugitives. June – Over a single night at his home in Shaftsbury, Vermont, Robert Frost completes the long poem "New Hampshire" and at sunrise writes "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". July – Having issued a 2nd edition of António Botto's poetry collection Canções through his Portuguese publishing house Olisipo, Fernando Pessoa publishes a magazine article praising Botto's courage and sincerity in shamelessly singing homosexual love as a true aesthete, sparking controversy over literatura de Sodoma. September 22 – Indian Bengali poet Kazi Nazrul Islam publishes the poem "Anandamoyeer Agamane" ("The Advent of the Delightful Mother"), in support of the Indian independence movement, in the Puja issue of his new biweekly magazine Dhumketu, for which he is arrested by the police of the Bengal Presidency and imprisoned on a charge of sedition for much of the following year, undertaking a hunger strike and composing many poems while in prison. His poem "Bidrohi" (বিদ্রোহী, "The Rebel", December 1921) is first collected this year in his first anthology, Agnibeena. October 15 – T. S. Eliot establishes The Criterion magazine, containing the first publication of his poem The Waste Land. This first appears in the United States later this month in The Dial (dated November 1) and is first published complete with notes in book form by Boni and Liveright in New York in December. November – Robert Bridges publishes his essay on free verse: 'Humdrum and Harum-Scarum'. December 6 – W. B. Yeats becomes a nominated member of the Seanad Éireann in the Irish Free State.
Works published in English
Canada
William Wilfred Campbell, The Poetical Works of Wilfred Campbell, W.J. Sykes ed. (London). posthumously published William Douw Lighthall, Old Measures (collected verse) (Montreal: A.T. Chapman). Marjorie Pickthall, The Woodcarver’s Wife, and Later Poems]. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.
Indian subcontinent in English
Including all of the British colonies that later became India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal: Swami Ananda Acharya: The Comrade: Poems on Philosophical Themes ( Poetry in English ), Alvdal, Norway: Gaurisankar Brahmakul, 105 pages Usarika, Dawn-Rhythms ( Poetry in English ), Alvdal, Norway: Gaurisankar Brahmakul Christina A. Albers, Ancient Tales of Hindustan Sri Aurobindo, Baji Prabhou ( Poetry in English ), Pondicherry: Arya Office N. M. Chatterjee, Parvati Harindranath Chattopadhyaya: The Magic Tree ( Poetry in English ), Madras: Shama's Publishing House (another source gives the publisher as: Madras: Theosophical Publishing House) Perfume of Earth ( Poetry in English ), Madras: printed at Huxley Press Joseph Furtado, Lays of Goa and Lyrics of Goan, a souvenir of the exposition of St. Francis Xavier; Bombay: Furtado and Sons Puran Singh, At His Feet ( Poetry in English ), Gwalior,
