Links to nations or nationalities point to articles with information on that nation's poetry or literature. For example, "United Kingdom" links to English poetry and "India" links to Indian poetry.

• June 3 – Canadian poet Charles G. D. Roberts is knighted.^[1]
• June 15
  • Gay English poet W. H. Auden enters a marriage of convenience with Erika Mann.^[2]
  • Premiere of T. S. Eliot's verse drama Murder in the Cathedral at Canterbury Cathedral in England.
• American poet George Oppen joins the Communist Party, where his organizing work will increasingly take precedence over his poetry; he writes no more verse until 1958.
• Picasso's poetry begins to be written.
• Tomb of Hafez in Shiraz, Persia, is rebuilt.

^{[clarification needed]}

• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry - Audrey Wurdemann, Bright Ambush

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

• January 14 – Labhshankar Thakar (died 2016), Indian Gujarati poet, playwright and story writer
• January 16 – Inger Christensen (died 2009), Danish poet, writer, novelist, essayist and children's book author^[26]
• January 18 – Jon Stallworthy (died 2014), English poet, literary critic and academic
• January 30 – Richard Brautigan (died 1984), American writer and poet
• January 27 – D. M. Thomas (died 2023), English novelist, poet, and translator from Cornwall
• February 14 – Grigore Vieru (died 2009), Moldovan poet writing in Romanian, strong promoter of the Romanian language in Moldova
• March 13 – Kofi Awoonor (killed 2013), Ghanaian poet and author whose work combines the poetic traditions of his native Ewe people and contemporary and religious symbolism to depict Africa during decolonization
• April 4 – Michael Horovitz (died 2021), German-born English poet, translator, editor and performer
• April 6 – J. P. Clark (died 2020), Nigerian English-language poet and playwright
• April 16 – Sarah Kirsch (died 2013), German
• May 5 – Eddie Linden (died 2023), British poet
• May 13 – Taku Miki 三木卓 pen name of Tomita Miki, Japanese Shōwa period poet and novelist in the Han ("Inundation") poetry circle (Surname: Miki)
• May 14 – Roque Dalton (died 1975), leftist Salvadoran poet and journalist writing about death, love and politics
• May 25 – Jay Wright, African-American poet, playwright and essayist
• May 26 – Michael Benedikt (died 2007), American poet
• June 1 – Clayton Eshleman (die 2021), American poet, translator and editor
• June 6 – Joy Kogawa, Canadian poet and novelist
• June 10 – Rukhl Fishman (died 1984), Israeli poet
• June 12 – Christoph Meckel (died 2020), German poet
• June 24 – Taufiq Ismail, Indonesian poet and activist
• July 2 – Nanni Balestrini (died 2019), Italian experimental poet, author and visual artist of the Neoavanguardia
• July 29 – Pat Lowther (murdered by her husband in 1975), Canadian poet
• August 12 – A. B. Spellman, African-American poet, music critic, music historian, arts administrator and author
• August 24 – Rosmarie Waldrop, German-born American poet and translator (primary English translator of Edmond Jabès)
• August 25 – Charles Wright, American poet
• September 10 – Mary Oliver (died 2018), American poet
• September 20 – Wong Phui Nam (died 2022), Malaysian economist and English-language poet
• September 24 – Robert Kelly, American poet associated with the deep image group
• September 30 – Arturo Corcuera (died 2017), Peruvian poet
• November 7 – Wahyu Sulaiman Rendra (died 2009), Indonesian poet, born Willibrordus Surendra Broto Rendra, popularly known as W. S. Rendra and also as "Si Burung Merak" and "The Peacock"^[27]
• November 15 – Gustaf Sobin (died 2005), American expatriate poet and novelist
• December 1 – George Bowering, Canadian novelist, poet, historian and biographer
• December 10 – Shūji Terayama 寺山 修司 (died 1983), Japanese avant-garde poet, playwright, writer, film director and photographer (surname: Terayama)
• December 13 – Adélia Prado, Brazilian poet
• December 25 – Bhupi Sherchan (died 1989), Nepali poet
• December 27 – Syed Shamsul Haque (died 2016), Bengali poet, lyricist, playwright and essayist
• December 29 – Yevgeny Rein (Евгений Рейн), Russian poet
• Also
  • Johari M. Amini (aka Jewel Christine McLawler Latimore and Johari M. Kunjufu), African American
  • James Applewhite, American
  • Sam Cornish, African American
  • Russell Edson (died 2014), American
  • Andrew Hoyem, American typographer, letterpress printer, publisher, poet and preservationist; founder and director of Arion Press in San Francisco
  • Desmond O'Grady, Irish poet and translator; former editor of The Transatlantic Review and organizer of the Spoleto International Poetry Festival
  • David R. Slavitt, American writer and translator
  • Ahmos Zu-Bolton II, African American

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

• March 26 – Tekkan Yosano 与謝野 鉄幹 (born 1873), pen-name of Yosano Hiroshi, late Meiji period, Taishō and early Shōwa period Japanese author and poet; husband of author Yosano Akiko; grandfather of cabinet minister and politician Kaoru Yosano
• April 6 – Edwin Arlington Robinson (born 1869), American poet, three-time Pulitzer Prize winner
• July 17 – George William Russell (born 1867), Anglo-Irish supporter of Irish nationalism, critic, poet, and painter who wrote under the pseudonym Æ, mystical writer, and centre of a group of followers of theosophy
• August 11 – Sir William Watson (born 1858), English traditionalist poet noted for the political content of his verse
• September 18 – Alice Dunbar Nelson (born 1875), African American poet, journalist and political activist during the Harlem Renaissance; married to poet Paul Laurence Dunbar
• November 23 – Louise Mack (born 1870) Australian poet, journalist and novelist
• November 30 – Fernando Pessoa (born 1888), Portuguese poet and writer; cause of death listed as cirrhosis
• December 17 – Lizette Woodworth Reese (born 1856), American poet

• Poetry
• List of poetry awards
• List of years in poetry