Contents

2011 in poetry

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

• January 19 – Liz Lochhead becomes the second Scots Makar, the official national poet of Scotland.^[1]
• April 4 – Canadian poet Christian Bök announces a significant break-through in his 9-year project to engineer "a life-form so that it becomes not only a durable archive for storing a poem, but also an operant machine for writing a poem".^[2][3] On April 3, Bök said that he

  "received confirmation from the laboratory at the University of Calgary that my poetic cipher, gene X-P13, has in fact caused E. coli to fluoresce red in our test-runs—meaning that, when implanted in the genome of this bacterium, my poem (which begins “any style of life/ is prim...”) does in fact cause the bacterium to write, in response, its own poem (which begins “the faery is rosy/ of glow...”)."^[4]

• June 12 – A poet and student, Ayat al-Ghermezi of Bahrain, is sentenced to a year in prison as part of that kingdom's crackdown on Shiite protesters calling for greater rights.^[5] Ayat was arrested on March 30 for reciting a poem critical of the government and cursing the current prime minister, Khalifa ibn Salman Al Khalifa, during the Bahraini uprisinginPearl Square, the main gathering place for demonstrators, in February 2011.
• August 9 – Announcement that Philip Levine has been named Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (United States Poet Laureate).^[6]
• October 6 – Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer wins the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature^[7]
• November 9 – The former United States Poet Laureate, Robert Hass, was participating in an Occupy movement demonstration at UC Berkeley called Occupy Cal, when he was hit in the ribs by a police officer wielding a baton. The incident occurred after his wife, poet Brenda Hillman, was shoved to the ground by a police officer, and Hass had tried to help her.^[8] He wrote about their experience in a November 19, 2011, The New York Times opinion piece entitled "Poet-Bashing Police." Also, poet Geoffrey G. O'Brien suffered broken ribs at the same demonstration.^[9]
• November 11 – Politician, academic and poet Michael D. Higgins takes office as President of Ireland.
• November 11 – The End PoembyJulian Gough is released in the Beta 1.9 version of Minecraft.^[10]
• December 6 – A memorial to Ted Hughes is unveiled in Poets' CornerofWestminster AbbeybySeamus Heaney.^[11]
• December 7 – Two British poets, Alice Oswald^[12] and John Kinsella,^[13] have withdrawn from this year's T. S. Eliot Prize in protest over the prize's sponsorship by an investment company called Arum who focus on hedge funds.

• Michael Boughn, Cosmographia: A Post-Lucretian Faux Micro-Epic
• Kate Eichhorn, Fieldnotes, A Forensic
• Phil Hall, Killdeer
• Garry Thomas Morse, Discovery Passages
• Susan Musgrave, Origami Dove

• Vivek Narayanan, Universal Beach, 80 pages, ingirumimusnocteetconsumimurigni (SPD, dist.), ISBN 978-1-934639-10-8

• Airini Beautrais Western Line, Victoria University Press

Poems from these 25 poets were selected by Chris Price for Best New Zealand Poems 2010, published online this year:

• Iain S. Thomas, I Wrote This For You, 202 pages, Central Avenue Publishing, ISBN 978-1-92676-068-1

• Hal Duncan, Songs for the Devil and Death, 172 pages, Papaverua Press, ISBN 978-1-907881-04-6
• Salena Godden, Under The Pier, Nasty Little Press
• Ralph Pordzik, Pretending to See Elephants, 58 pages, Lulu Press, ISBN 978-1-4457-5568-7
• William Walker (age 97), The Poetry of Flt Lt William Walker AE, The Battle of Britain Memorial Trust^[14]
• Eoghan Walls, The Salt Harvest, 64 pages, Seren Books, ISBN 978-1-85411-549-2^[15]
• Carol Watts, Occasionals, Reality Street, 88 pp., ISBN 978-1-874400-52-3

• Being Human, edited by Neil Astley
• New Poetries V, edited by Michael Schmidt with Eleanor Crawforth, 264 pages, Carcanet Press, ISBN 978-1-84777-131-5

• Seth Abramson, Northerners, 72 pages, New Issues Press, ISBN 978-1-930974-96-8
• Ammiel Alcalay, “neither wit nor gold” (from them), 88 pp., Ugly Duckling Presse, ISBN 978-1-933254-84-5
• Will Alexander, Compression & Purity, 100 pp., City Lights, ISBN 978-0-87286-541-9
• Rae Armantrout, Money Shot, 80 pages, Wesleyan University Press, ISBN 978-0-8195-7130-4
• Morris Berman, Counting Blessings, 44 pages, Cervena Barva Press, ISBN 978-0-5780-8091-8
• Ernesto Cardenal, The Origin of the Species and Other Poems, translated & introduced by John Lyons, foreword by Anne Waldman, 168 pp., Texas Tech University Press, ISBN 978-0-89672-689-5
• Billy Collins, Horoscopes for the Dead, 128 pages, Random House, ISBN 978-1-4000-6492-2
• William Corbett, The Whalen Poem, 64 pages, Hanging Loose Press, ISBN 978-1-934909-13-3
• Joshua Corey, Severance Songs, 84 pages, Tupelo Press, 978-1-932195-92-7
• Forrest Gander, Core Samples from the World, 96 pages, New Directions, ISBN 978-0-8112-1887-0
• Eloise Greenfield, The Great Migration: Journey to the North, 32 pages, Amistad, ISBN 978-0-06-125921-0
• Jane Hirshfield, Come, Thief, 108 pages, Knopf, ISBN 978-0-307-59542-3
• Harmony Holiday, Negro League Baseball, 104 pages, Fence Books, ISBN 978-1-934200-42-1
• Susan Howe, That This, 112 pages, New Directions, ISBN 978-0-8112-1918-1
• David Meltzer, When I Was A Poet, 150 pages, City Lights, ISBN 978-0-87286-516-7
• Anna Moschovakis, You and Three Others Are Approaching a Lake, 132 pages, Coffee House Press, ISBN 978-1-56689-250-6
• Alice Notley, Culture of One, 160 pages, Penguin, ISBN 978-0-14-311893-0
• Edward Nudelman, What Looks Like an Elephant, 116 pp., Lummox Press, ISBN 978-1-929878-91-8
• Ovid, Love Poems, Letters and Remedies of Ovid, transl. by David R. Slavitt; introd. by Michael Dirda, 384 pp., Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-05904-7
• Michael Palmer, Thread, 112 pages, New Directions, ISBN 978-0-8112-1921-1
• Ruben Quesada, Next Extinct Mammal, 62 pages, Greenhouse Review Press, ISBN 978-0-9655239-9-8
• Matthew Rohrer, Destroyer and Preserver, 96 pages, Wave, ISBN 978-1-933517-50-6
• Rabindranath Tagore, The Essential Tagore, ed. by Fakrul Alam & Radha Chakravarty, 864 pp., Belknap-Harvard, ISBN 978-0-674-05790-6
• Tyrone Williams, Pink Tie, Hooke Press,
• Elizabeth Willis, Address, 80 pages, Wesleyan, ISBN 978-0-8195-7098-7
• Dean Young, Fall Higher, Copper Canyon Press, ISBN 978-1-55659-311-6

• Tyler Chadwick (ed.); – Fire in the Pasture: 21st Century Mormon Poets, 546 pages. Peculiar Pages, ISBN 978-0-9817696-6-0.
• Kenneth Goldsmith (ed.); Craig Dworkin (ed.) – Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing, 656 pages. Northwestern University Press, ISBN 978-0-8101-2711-1
• Sarah Palin; Michael Solomon (ed.) – I Hope Like Heck, 64 pages. Byliner, ISBN 978-1-61452-009-2

• Charles Bernstein, Attack of the Difficult Poems: Essays and Inventions, 296 pages, University of Chicago Press, ISBN 978-0-226-04477-4
• Robert Duncan, The H.D. Book, 696 pages, University of California Press, ISBN 978-0-520-26075-7
• Oren Izenberg, Being Numerous: Poetry and the Ground of Social Life, 272 pages, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-14866-3
• Christopher Nealon, The Matter of Capital: Poetry and Crisis in the American Century, 202 pages, Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-05872-9

These poets appeared in The Best American Poetry 2011. David Lehman, general editor, and Kevin Young, guest editor (who selected the poetry):^[16]

• Nora Bossong, Sommer vor den Mauern: Gedichte, 96 pages, Hanser, ISBN 978-3-446-23629-5
• Tom Bresemann, Berliner Fenster: Gedichte, 96 pages, Bloomsbury, ISBN 978-3-8270-0973-9
• Crauss., LAKRITZVERGIFTUNG. juicy transversions: Gedichte, 180 pages, Verlagshaus J. Frank, ISBN 978-3-940249-96-8
• Dietmar Dath, Gott ruft zurück: Gedichte, 60 pages, Connewitzer Verlagsbuchhandlung, ISBN 978-3-937799-50-6
• Synke Köhler, waldoffen: Gedichte, 76 pages, Lyrikedition 2000, ISBN 978-3-86906-180-1
• Alexander Gumz, ausrücken mit modellen: Gedichte, 88 pages, kookbooks, ISBN 978-3-937445-44-1
• Daniela Seel, ich kann diese stelle nicht wiederfinden: Gedichte, 64 pages, kookbooks, ISBN 978-3-937445-46-5
• Lutz Steinbrück, Blickdicht: Gedichte, 76 pages, Verlagshaus J. Frank, ISBN 978-3-940249-38-8
• Antony Theodore, Das Lieds meines Tanzes und der Tanz meiner Traume, 92 pages, Ventura Verlaghaus, ISBN 978-39-408531-0-3
• Mathias Traxler, You’re welcome: Gedichte/ Aufzeichnungen, 127 pages, kookbooks, ISBN 978-3-937445-45-8
• Mikael Vogel, Massenhaft Tiere: Gedichte, 100 pages, Verlagshaus J. Frank, ISBN 978-3-940249-40-1
• Florian Voß, Datenschatten Datenströme Staub: Gedichte, 80 pages, Verlagshaus J. Frank, ISBN 978-3-940249-46-3
• Matthew Zapruder, Glühend: Gedichte, a bilingual English/German edition; translated into German by Ron Winkler, 145 pages, Luxbooks, ISBN 978-3-939557-41-8
• Judith Zander, oder tau: Gedichte, 100 pages, dtv, ISBN 978-3-423-24862-4

• Seán Ó Ríordáin, Na Dánta (Poems) ISBN 9781905560738^[17]

• Leszek Engelking, Muzeum dzieciństwa (Museum of Childhood, WBPiCAK) ISBN 978-83-62717-13-2
• Julia Hartwig, Gorzkie żale (Lenten Psalms, Wydawnictwo a5) ISBN 978-83-61298-30-4

Bengali

• Rahman Henry, Sorrow and some other happiness. (Dukkho O Aro Kichu Ananda); Bhashachitra, Dhaka, Bangladesh. ISBN 978-984-8471-02-9, Bengali poetry
• Chandan Chowdhury, Sculpture of Crow. (kaker vascorjo); Ittadi grantho prakash, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Bengali poetry

Ukrainian

• Les Wicks, Shadows of the Read (Krok)
• "AU/UA: Contemporary Poetry of Ukraine and Australia" (Krok) Meuse Press

Urdu

• Mehr Lal Soni Zia Fatehabadi, Meri Tasveer ("My Portrait") (GBD Books, New Delhi), Urdu poetry

• Archibald Lampman Award: Paul Tyler, A Short History of Forgetting
• Atlantic Poetry Prize: John Steffler, Lookout
• 2011 Governor General's Awards: Phil Hall, Killdeer (English); Louise Dupré, Plus haut que les flammes (French)
• Griffin Poetry Prize:
  • Canadian: Dionne Brand, Ossuaries
  • International, in the English Language: Gjertrud Schnackenberg, Heavenly Questions
  • Lifetime Recognition Award: Yves Bonnefoy
• Gerald Lampert Award: Anna Swanson, The Nights Also
• Pat Lowther Award: Evelyn Lau, Living Under Plastic
• Prix Alain-Grandbois: Carole David, Manuel de poétique à l'intention des jeunes filles
• Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize: Stephen Collis, On the Material
• Prix Émile-Nelligan: Mahigan Lepage, Relief

• New Zealand Post Book Awards:
  • Award for poetry: Kate Camp The Mirror of Simple Annihilated Souls, Victoria University Press
  • NZSA Jessie Mackay Best First Book Award for Poetry: Lynn Jenner Dear Sweet Harry, Auckland University Press

• Cholmondeley Award: Imtiaz Dharker, Michael Haslam, Lachlan Mackinnon
• Costa Award (formerly "Whitbread Awards") for poetry:
  • Shortlist:
• English Association's Fellows' Poetry Prizes:
• Eric Gregory Award (for a collection of poems by a poet under the age of 30):
• Forward Poetry Prize:
  • Best Collection:
    • Shortlist:
  • Best First Collection:
    • Shortlist:
  • Best Poem:
    • Shortlist:
• Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize for poetry:
  • Shortlist:
• Manchester Poetry Prize:
• National Poet of Wales:
• National Poetry Competition 2010:
• T. S. Eliot Prize (United Kingdom and Ireland):
  • Shortlist (announced in November 201): 2011 Short List
• The Times/Stephen Spender Prize for Poetry Translation:

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: to Dore Kiesselbach for Salt Pier^[18]
• AML Award for Poetry awarded to Tyler Chadwick for editing Fire in the Pasture: Twenty-first Century Mormon Poets
• Bollingen Prize: Susan Howe – Judges: Peter Gizzi, Marjorie Perloff, Claudia Rankine^[19]
• Kate Tufts Discovery Award: Atsuro Riley for Romey's Order
• Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award: Chase Twichell for Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been
• Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize: C.D. Wright for One With Others
• National Book Award for Poetry: Nikky Finney for Head Off & Split: Poems
• National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry: awarded to Laura Kasischke for Space, In Chains.^[20]
• The New Criterion Poetry Prize: D.H. Tracy for Janet's Cottage
• PEN Award for Poetry in Translation: Khaled Mattawa for Adonis: Selected PoemsbyAdonis
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (United States): to Kay Ryan for The Best of It: New and Selected Poems
  • Finalists: The Common ManbyMaurice Manning and Break the GlassbyJean Valentine
• Raiziss/de Palchi Translation Award: Dominic Siracusa
• Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize : David Ferry^[21]
• Wallace Stevens Award: Yusef Komunyakaa
• Whiting Awards: Don Mee Choi, Eduardo C. Corral, Shane McCrae, Kerri Webster
• Yale Younger Series: Eduardo C. Corral – Judge: Carl Phillips

• Frost Medal: Charles Simic
• Shelley Memorial Award: – Judges:
• Writer Magazine/Emily Dickinson Award: – Judge:
• Lyric Poetry Award: – Judge:
• Lucille Medwick Memorial Award: – Judge:  ; finalist:
• Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award: – Judge:  ; finalists:
• Louise Louis/Emily F. Bourne Student Poetry Award: – Judge:  ; finalists:
• George Bogin Memorial Award: – Judge:
• Robert H. Winner Memorial Award: – Judge:  ; finalists:
• Cecil Hemley Memorial Award: – Judge:
• Norma Farber First Book Award: – Judge:
• William Carlos Williams Award: – Judge:  ; finalists:

^[22]

2011 Student Poetry Contest Winners :: Category 8: Virginia Student Prize :: Judge: Dr. Kate Simpson, Winchester, VA

• 1st Place – Jake Robinson of Virginia Beach, VA for the poem "Makings of Men"
• 2nd Place – Mikal Cardine of Midland, VA for the poem "Remember"
• 3rd Place – Kira Tomlin of Front Royal, VA for the poem "Caught In Silence"
• 1st Honorable Mention – Elliott Warren of Richmond, VA for the poem "Time Does Not Heal"
• 2nd Honorable Mention – Franklin Ewing of Richmond, VA for the poem "Against Kosovel"
• 3rd Honorable Mention – Andre Aganbi of Chester, VA for the poem "Classic Scene"

2011 Student Poetry Contest Winners :: Category 7: College/University :: Judge: Bob Kelly, Newport News, VA

• 1st Place Ishaway Friestad of Norfolk, VA for the poem "Super Nova"
• 3rd Place Lauren "Wren" Brown of Springfield, VA for the poem "Spiral"

2011 Student Poetry Contest Winners :: Category 6: Grades 11 &12 :: Judge: Nancy Powell, Hampton, VA

• 1st Place Franklin Ewing of Richmond, VA for the poem "Think"
• 2nd Place Bridget Jamison of Vienna, VA for the poem "The Dance"
• 3rd Place Stephen Wood of Richmond, VA for the poem "On The Rechristening of High Fructose Corn Syrup"

2011 Student Poetry Contest Winners :: Category 5: Grades 9 &10:: Judge: Pete Freas, Chesapeake, VA

• 1st Place Hannah Wilson of Oak Park, IL for the poem “I came from a mother...”
• 2nd Place Hannah Srajer of Oak Park, IL for the poem "Crusade"
• 2nd Place Olivia O'Sullivan of Oak Park, IL for the poem “weekday drinking...”
• 3rd Place Natalie Richardson of Oak Park, IL for the poem “his curious fingers...”
• 3rd Place Yuliya Semibratova of Oak Park, IL for the poem “not red, nor white, nor blue...”
• 1st Honorable Mention Rory Dunn of Fredericksburg, VA for the poem "The Feeling"

2011 Student Poetry Contest Winners :: Category 4: Grades 7 &8 :: Judge: ijil Rainbow Hawk Giver, Norfolk, VA

• 1st Place Tess Hinchman of West Bath, ME for the poem "March 15"
• 2nd Place Sam Herter of Brunswick, ME for the poem “Fears: Age 7”
• 3rd Place Lilly Richardson of Whitefield, ME for the poem “Do You Remember?”
• 1st Honorable Mention Sophia Carbonneau of Alna, ME for the poem "This Is Just To Say"
• 1st Honorable Mention Sabrina Sammel of Stafford, VA for the poem "Silence"
• 2nd Honorable Mention Morganne Elkins of Edgecomb, ME for the poem "Don"
• 2nd Honorable Mention Caleb Rinderer of Newport News, VA for the poem "Country Daybreak"
• 3rd Honorable Mention Rex Reilly of Miami Beach, FL for the poem "Chocolate"

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

• January 5 – Malangatana Ngwenya, age 74 (born 1936), Mozambican poet and painter^[23]
• January 10 – María Elena Walsh, age 80 (born 1930), Argentine musician, poet and writer ("Manuelita la tortuga")^[24]
• January 11 – Susana Chávez, age 36 (born 1974), Mexican poet and human rights activist, strangled^[25]
• January 20
  • F. A. Nettelbeck, age 60 (born 1950), American poet^[26][27]
  • Reynolds Price, age 77 (born 1933), American novelist, occasional poet, and scholar of the work of John Milton
• January 23 – Novica Tadić, age 62 (born 1949), Yugoslavian poet^[28]
• January 25 – R. F. Langley, age 72 (born 1938), English poet and diarist, loosely affiliated with the Cambridge poetry scene^[29]
• February 3 – Édouard Glissant, age 82 (born 1928), French-Martiniquan poet and writer^[30]
• February 6 – Andrée Chedid, 90, Egyptian-born French poet and novelist^[31]
• February 11 – Bo Carpelan, 84, Finnish poet and author^[32]

  

• February 25 – Aminath Faiza, 82, Maldivian poet and author^[33]
• February 25 – Justinas Marcinkevičius, 80, Lithuanian poet and playwright^[34]
• March 2 – John Haines, 86, American poet and educator, former poet laureate of Alaska^[35]
• April 2 – Paul Violi, 66, American poet
• April 25 – Ira Cohen, 76 (born 1935), American poet, publisher, photographer and filmmaker
• May 10 – Patrick Galvin, 83 (born 1927), Irish poet and dramatist
• May 19 – William Kloefkorn, 78 (born 1933), American poet and former "Nebraska State Poet"^[36]
• May 23 – Roberto Sosa, 81 (born 1930), Honduran poet^{[citation needed]}
• May 25:
  • Edwin Honig, 91 (born 1919), American poet, critic and translator known for his English renditions of seminal works of Spanish and Portuguese literature^[37]
  • Yannis Varveris (born 1955), Greek poet, critic and translator
• May 27 – Gil Scott-Heron, 62 (born 1949), American poet, spoken-word musician and author who helped lay the groundwork for rap by fusing minimalistic percussion, political expression and spoken-word poetry^[38]

• May 29 – Da Real One, 46, American poet (Def Poetry) gunned down in North Miami^[39]
• June 2 – Josephine Hart, 69 (born 1942), Irish-born British novelist and poetry promoter. As director of Haymarket Publishing, a founder of Gallery Poets and West End Poetry Hour^[40]
• June 21 – Robert Kroetsch, OC, 83 (born 1927), Canadian novelist, poet and non-fiction writer^[41]
• August 22 – Samuel Menashe, 85 (born 1925), American poet and the first poet to receive "The Neglected Masters Award", given by the Poetry Foundation of America, which he received in 2004^[42]
• August 24 – Seyhan Erözçelik, 49 (born 1962), Turkish poet^[43][44]
• August 26 – Susan Fromberg Schaeffer, 71 (born 1940), American novelist and poet, finalist for 1975 National Book Award in poetry for Granite Lady^[45][46]
• September 4 – Hugh Fox, 79 (born 1932), prolific American novelist and poet, a founder of the Pushcart Prize
• October 18 – Andrea Zanzotto, 90 (born 1921), Italian poet^[47]
• October 27 – Allen Mandelbaum, 85 (born 1926), American poet and translator
• November 10 – Ivan Martin Jirous, 67 (born 1944), Czech poet
• November 19 - Ruth Stone, 96 (born 1915), American poet
• November 21 – Theodore Enslin, 86 (born 1925), American poet with close ties to Cid Corman, Charles Olson, and particularly the Objectivist tradition in the U.S.^[48]
• November 24 – Andrzej Mandalian, 85 (born 1926), Polish poet
• December 14 – George Whitman, 98 (born 1913), heir to Sylvia Beach as proprietor of the Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris^[49]
• December 18 – Václav Havel, 75 (born 1936) was a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician; best known to the public as the last presidentofCzechoslovakia (1989–1992) and the first President of the Czech Republic (1993–2003)^[50]
• December 30 – Eleanor Ross Taylor, 91, American poet who received the 2010 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize of $100,000 which honors poets whose "lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition"^[51]

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