Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).
March 1 – Dylan Thomas posthumously honoured by a floor plaque in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey
September – The New Criterion founded in New York City
October – Canadian documentary film Poetry in Motion released
Final edition of This magazine published in Canada
Listed by nation where the work was first published and again by the poet's native land, if different; substantially revised works listed separately:
M. Duwell, editor, A Possible Contemporary Poetry (scholarship)
Chris Mansell, Head, Heart & Stone (Fling Publishers)
Les Murray:
Equanimities
The Vernacular Republic: Poems 1961-1981, Angus & Robertson; Edinburgh, Canongate; New York, Persea Books, 1982 and (enlarged and revised edition) Angus & Robertson, 1988
A. Paolucci and L. Dobrez, editors, Review of National Literatures: Australia (scholarship)
Margaret Atwood, The New Oxford Book of Canadian Verse in English (anthology)
Margaret Avison, Winter Sun /The Dumbfounding: Poems 1940-66
Dionne Brand, Primitive Offensive
Don Domanski, War in an Empty House
Robert Finch, Twelve for Christmas.
Diane Keating, No Birds or Flowers
Irving Layton, A Wild Peculiar Joy: Selected Poems, 1945-82 Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.
Gwendolyn MacEwen:
The Fire Eaters.
The T. E. Lawrence Poems
Earth-Light: Selected Poetry 1963-1982. Toronto: General Publishing.
Elizabeth Smart, Eleven Poems
Michael Ondaatje, Running in the Family, memoir, New York: W. W. Norton, ,
Wilfred Watson, Mass on Cowback.