1955 in poetry

Years in poetry:	1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958
Years in literature:	1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958
Decades in poetry:	1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s
Centuries in poetry:	19th century 20th century 21st century
Centuries:	19th century · 20th century · 21st century
Decades:	1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s
Years:	1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958

[edit] Events

The Group, a British poetry movement, starts meeting in London with gatherings taking place once a week, on Friday evenings, at first at Hobsbaum's flat and later at the house of Edward Lucie-Smith. The poets gathered to discuss each other's work, putting into practice the sort of analysis and objective comment in keeping with the principles of Hobsbaum's Cambridge tutor F. R. Leavis and of the New Criticism in general. Before each meeting about six or seven poems by one poet would be typed, duplicated and distributed to the dozen or so participants.
The Movement poets as a group in Britain came to public notice this year in Robert Conquest's anthology New Lines. The core of the group consisted of Philip Larkin, Elizabeth Jennings, D. J. Enright, Kingsley Amis, Thom Gunn and Donald Davie. They were identified with a hostility to modernism and internationalism, and looked to Thomas Hardy as a model. However, both Davie and Gunn later moved away from this position.
Henry Rago becomes editor of Poetry
April — Wallace Stevens is baptized a Catholic by the chaplain of St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut, where Stevens spent his last days suffering from terminal cancer.^[1] After a brief release from the hospital, Stevens was readmitted and died on August 2 at the age of 76.

On July 19 Beat poet Weldon Kees's Plymouth Savoy was found on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco with the keys in the ignition. When his friends went to search his apartment, all they found were the cat he had named Lonesome and a pair of red socks in the sink. His sleeping bag and savings account book were missing. He left no note. No one is sure if Kees, 41, jumped off the bridge that day or if he went to Mexico. Before he disappeared, Kees quoted Rilke to friend Michael Grieg, ominously saying that sometimes a person needs to change his life completely.
October 7 — The "Six Gallery reading" takes place in San Francisco with Kenneth Rexroth acting as M.C., Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, and Philip Whalen read, and the event included Allen Ginsberg's first reading of Howl; the reading (1) brought together the East and West Coast factions of the Beat Generation, (2) was the first important public manifestation of the poetry movement and (3) helped to herald the West Coast literary revolution that became known as the San Francisco Renaissance. In the audience a totally drunken Jack Kerouac refused to read his own work but cheered on the others, shouting "Yeah! Go! Go!" during their performances.

A.R. Ammons, Ommateum with Doxology, his first book
W. H. Auden, The Shield of Achilles, a book of poetry; his poem of the same name was first published in 1953
Elizabeth Bishop, Poems: North & South — A Cold Spring, (Houghton Mifflin)
Paul Blackburn, The Dissolving Fabric
Amy Clampitt, As If: Poems New and Selected
Gregory Corso, The Vestal Lady and Other Poems
Robert Creeley, All That is Lovely in Man
Robert Hughes, Collected Poems
William Graham (poet), The Nightfishing
Philip Larkin, The Less Deceived
Howard Nemerov, The Salt Garden
Adrienne Rich, The Diamond Cutters and Other Poems
Giorgos Seferis, Ημερολόγιο Καταστρώματος ΙΙΙ (Deck Diary III)
R.S. Thomas, Song at the Year's Turning
William Carlos Williams, Journey to Love

January 20 — Robert P. Coffin, 62
June 19 — Adrienne Monnier, 63, French poet and publisher
July 18 — Weldon Kees, 41, American poet, was presumed dead (see "Events" section). He was a poet, critic, novelist, short story writer, painter and composer.
August 2 — Wallace Stevens, 75, American poet