1908 in poetry

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

Events

March – Ezra Pound leaves America for Europe. In April, he moves to Venice, where in July he self-publishes his first collection of poems, A Lume Spento (dedicated to his friend Philadelphia artist William Brooke Smith, who has just died of tuberculosis). In August he settles in London, where he will remain until 1920 and in December publish A Quinzaine for this Yule.
Summer – The Marlowe Society stages a production at the New Theatre, Cambridge (England), of Milton's masque Comus directed by Rupert Brooke.
RenÃÂ©e Vivien attempts suicide by overdose of laudanum at the Savoy Hotel in London.

Founding in London of the Poets' Club, a group comprising mainly amateurs who meet monthly for most of the year.
Late in the year – T. E. Hulme reads to the Poets' Club his paper, A Lecture on Modern Poetry, a concise statement of his influential advocacy of free verse.

William Wilfred Campbell, Poetical Tragedies including "Mordred", "Daulac", "Morning" and "Hildebrand"
William Henry Drummond, The Great Fight: Poems and Sketches. New York: G.P. PutnamÃ¢ÂÂs Sons.

Lascelles Abercrombie, Interludes and Poems
Hilaire Belloc, Cautionary Tales for Children
William Henry Davies, Nature Poems and Others
Edmund Gosse, The Autumn Garden
Thomas Hardy, The Dynasts: Part 3
Minnie Louise Haskins, The Desert, including the poem The Gate of the Year
Edith Nesbit, Ballads and Lyrics of Socialism
Stephen Phillips, New Poems
Ezra Pound, A Quinzaine for this Yule, American poet published in the United Kingdom
Katharine Tynan, Experiences, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom
William Butler Yeats, The Collected Works in Verse and Prose, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom

William Stanley Braithwaite, The House of Falling Leaves with Other Poems
Ezra Pound, American poet published in the United Kingdom and Italy:
A Lume Spento, Pound's first poetry collection (the title translates as "a dim light") published at his own expense in Venice
A Quinzaine for this Yule, London
George Sterling, A Wine of Wizardry and Other Poems

John Le Gay Brereton, Sea and Sky, Australia
Katharine Tynan, Experiences, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom
Albert D. Watson, The Wing of the Wild-Bird
William Butler Yeats, The Collected Works in Verse and Prose, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom

C. Subrahamania Bharati, Cutecakitankal, Indian, Tamil-language
Louis-Joseph Doucet, Chanson du passant; French language;, Canada
Kahlil Gibran, Al-Arwah al-Mutamarrida ("Rebellious Spirits"), Lebanese-born Arabic poet in the United States
Maria Konopnicka, Rota ("Oath"), Polish

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

February 4 – Julian Bell (killed 1937), English poet, and a member of a family whose notable members include his parents, Clive and Vanessa Bell; his aunt, Virginia Woolf; his younger brother, writer Quentin Bell; and writer and painter Angelica Garnett, his half-sister
March 8 – Ebrahim Al-Arrayedh (ÃÂ¥ÃÂ¨ÃÂ±ÃÂ§ÃÂÃÂÃÂ ÃÂ§ÃÂÃÂ¹ÃÂ±ÃÂÃÂÃÂ¶) (died 2002), Indian-born Bahraini poet
April 2 – Ronald McCuaig (died 1993), Australian poet and writer
April 15 – Denis Devlin (died 1959), Irish modernist poet and career diplomat
April 24 – George Oppen (died 1984), American poet, winner of the 1969 Pulitzer Prize in poetry
May 25 – Theodore Roethke (died 1963), American poet
June 14 – Kathleen Jessie Raine (died 2003), English poet, critic and scholar
August 19 – Josephine Jacobsen (died 2003), American poet, short story writer and critic
September 9 – Cesare Pavese (suicide 1950), Italian poet, novelist, literary critic and translator
October 9 – Harry Hooton (died 1961), Australian poet and anarchist
October 12 – Paul Engle (died 1991), American poet, writer, editor and novelist
November 28 – Mary Oppen (died 1990), American activist, artist, photographer and writer
November 30
Buddhadeb Bosu (died 1974), Bengali poet
Eric Irvin (died 1992), Australian

January 15 – James Ryder Randall (born 1839), American journalist and poet
January 16 – Edmund Clarence Stedman (born 1833), American poet, critic, essayist, banker and scientist
February 22 – Eliza A. Pittsinger (died 1837), American, "The California Poetess"
May 27 – Alexander Posey (born 1873), Native American poet, humorist, journalist and politician
June 23 – Kunikida Doppo Ã¥ÂÂÃ¦ÂÂ¨Ã§ÂÂ° Ã§ÂÂ¨Ã¦ÂÂ© (born 1871), Japanese Meiji period romantic poet and one of the novelists who pioneered naturalism in Japan
September 21 – Ernest Fenollosa (born 1853), American orientalist
October 21 – Charles Eliot Norton (born 1827), American scholar and man of letters