— W. H. Auden, from "September 1, 1939"
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).
January
Last issue of The Criterion is published
The Kenyon Review is established by John Crowe Ransom
January/February – Poetry London: a Bi-Monthly of Modern Verse and Criticism, founded and edited by Tambimuttu (with Dylan Thomas and others), is first published
February 17 – Gunga Din, a film directed by George Stevens, based loosely on Rudyard Kipling's poem of the same name, is released in the United States
June – Rolfe Humphries, a former student of Nicholas Murray Butler at Columbia University, publishes in the magazine Poetry "Draft Ode for a Phi Beta Kappa Occasion", following a classical format of blank verse with one classical reference per line but with the first letters of each line of the resulting acrostic spelling out the message "Nicholas Murray Butler is a horses [sic.] ass"; upon learning of the "hidden" message, the irate editors run an apology in the August issue
Carl Rakosi begins a 28-year hiatus from writing poetry
Arthur Bourinot, Under the Sun (1939 Governor General's Award)
Anne Marriott, The Wind Our Enemy, Toronto: Ryerson Press
Harindranath Chattopadhyaya, The Dark Well (Poetry in English), Madras: Kalakshetra
Tandra Devi, Poems (Poetry in English), Srinagar: Tandra Devi Publications
P. R. Kaikini, Shanghai (Poetry in English), Bombay: New Book Co.
Ursula Bethell, Day and Night : Poems 1924-34, by the author of 'Time and Place, Christchurch: Caxton Press
Charles Brasch, The Land and the People, and Other Poems, Christchurch: Caxton Press
Allen Curnow, Not in Narrow Seas, Christchurch: Caxton Press
W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood, Journey to a War, verse and nonfiction prose, published March 16; includes "In Time of War", a sonnet sequence with verse commentary by Auden; diary and prose by Isherwood
W. H.