1950 in poetry

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France). Charles Olson publishes his seminal essay, "Projective Verse". In this, he calls for a poetry of "open field" composition to replace traditional closed poetic forms with an improvised form that should reflect exactly the content of the poem. This form is to be based on the line, and each line is to be a unit of breath and of utterance. The content is to consist of "one perception immediately and directly (leading) to a further perception". This essay becomes a kind of de facto manifesto for the Black Mountain poets. George Oppen and his wife, Mary, move from the United States to Mexico, where their links to Communism are less problematic. The Beloit Poetry Journal is founded by Robert Glauber and Chad Walsh. It is intended to be a publication of Beloit College since Walsh is an English teacher there. Pioneer Press founded in Jamaica. Saint Lucia Arts Guild founded by Derek and Roderick Walcott. Listed by nation where the work was first published and again by the poet's native land, if different; substantially revised works listed separately: Dorothy Livesay, Call My People Home, Canada James Wreford Watson, Of Time and the Lover (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart). Sri Aurobindo, Savitri ( Poetry in English ), Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram R. Bhagavan, Poems ( Poetry in English ), the author's first book of poems, Calcutta: Writers Workshop; India . Doreen W. Wickremasinghe, editor, Poems of East & West, Colombo: Colombo Apothecaries Co., 170 pages; anthology; Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Ursula Bethell, Collected Poems, Christchurch: Caxton Press (posthumous) Alistair Campbell, Mine Eyes Dazzle, Christchurch: Pegasus Press, including "The Return" and "Elegy" M. K. Joseph, Imaginary Islands Kendrick Smithyman, The Blind Mountain, Caxton Hubert Witheford, The Shadow of the Flame W. H.