Beginning this month, Sylvia Plath experiences a great burst of creativity, writing most of the poems on which her reputation will rest in what will be the last few months of her life, including many which will be published in Ariel and Winter Trees.
Writers in the Soviet Union this year are allowed to publish criticism of Joseph Stalin and are given more freedom generally, although many are severely criticized for doing so. The poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, in the poem, The Heirs of Stalin, writes that more guards should be placed at Stalin's tomb, "lest Stalin rise again, and with Stalin the past". He also condemns anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union. His poetry readings attract hundreds and thousands of enthusiastic young people, to the point where police are often summoned to preserve order and disperse the crowds long after midnight. Other young poets also go beyond the previous limits of Soviet censorship: Andrei Voznesensky, Robert Rozhdestvensky, and Bella Akhmadulina (who has divorced Yevtushenko). Aleksandr Tvardovsky, editor of the literary monthly Novy Mir, supports many of the young writers. By the end of the year, the young writers have gained power in the official writers' unions which control much of the literary culture of the Soviet Union, and some publications which had attacked them are printing their work.[1]American poet Robert Frost visits Russian poet Anna Akhmatova in her dacha.
Derek Walcott, In a Green Night the "most striking" first collection of poetry of 1962, according to Howard Sergeant, editor of Outposts (writing for publication in 1963). Walcott had already gained recognition with his plays.[1]
Ian Hamilton Finlay, The Dancers Inherit the Party, 2nd edition, Ventura California and Worcester, England: Migrant Press, Scottish poet publishing in the United States
Robert Frost, In the Clearing, his first collection of new poems in 15 years[1]
Listed by language and often by nation where the work was first published and again by the poet's native land, if different; substantially revised works listed separately:
Stéphane Mallarmé, Pour un tombeau d'Anatole, an abandoned and previously unpublished work, consisting of notes and drafts of an elegy the poet expected to write on his dead son (posthumous); edited by J. P. Richard[1]
Anonymous author from the Soviet Union, Zion Halo Tishali, poems originally written in Russian and clandestinely sent to Israel, edited and translated by A. Shlonsky and M. Sharett[1]
J. Lichtenbaum, Shiratenu ("Our Poetry"), a two-volume anthology of Hebrew poetry from the end of the 18th century[1]
J. J. Schwartz, Kentucky, the only volume of Hebrew poetry published in the United States, according to The Britannica Book of the Year 1963 (covering events of 1962)[1]
March 18 – George Sylvester Viereck, 77 (born 1884), American poet and novelist, as well as a pro-German propagandist during both World War I and World War II[1]
^Lal, P., Modern Indian Poetry in English: An Anthology & a Credo, p 231, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, second edition, 1971 (however, on page 597 an "editor's note" states contents "on the following pages are a supplement to the first edition" and is dated "1972")
^ abcdefghijklmnM. L. Rosenthal, The New Poets: American and British Poetry Since World War II, New York: Oxford University Press, 1967, "Selected Bibliography: Individual Volumes by Poets Discussed", pp 334-340
^ abcdefghijkCox, Michael, editor, The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature, Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN0-19-860634-6
^ abcdefghijklmnLudwig, Richard M., and Clifford A. Nault, Jr., Annals of American Literature: 1602–1983, 1986, New York: Oxford University Press ("If the title page is one year later than the copyright date, we used the latter since publishers frequently postdate books published near the end of the calendar year." — from the Preface, p vi)
^ abcdeAuster, Paul, editor, The Random House Book of Twentieth-Century French Poetry: with Translations by American and British Poets, New York: Random House, 1982 ISBN0-394-52197-8
^ abcdeBree, Germaine, Twentieth-Century French Literature, translated by Louise Guiney, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1983
^Preminger, Alex and T.V.F. Brogan, et al., editors, The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, 1993, Princeton University Press and MJF Books, "German Poetry" article, "Anthologies in German" section, pp 473-474