Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
- January 1 – Bingo Gazingo, 85, American performance poet, struck by car [35]
- January 8 – Slavka Maneva, 75, Macedonian writer and poet [36]
- January 11 – Fina de Calderón, 82, Spanish [37]
- January 14 – P. K. Page, 93 (born 1916), Canadian poet
- January 20:
- Taner Baybars, 73, Cypriot-born British poet and painter [38]
- Avrom Sutzkever, 96 (born 1913), Israeli, Yiddish-language poet
- February 6 – Robert Dana, 80 (born 1929), American poet, was the poet laureate for the State of Iowa from 2004 to 2008, pancreatic cancer. [39]
- February 13 – Lucille Clifton, 73 (born 1936), American poet and former Poet Laureate of Maryland (1974–1985). [40]
- March 12 – Todd Moore, 72 (born 1937), American poet [41] [42]
- March 14 – Vinda Karandikar, 91 (born 1918), Indian, Marathi-language poet and writer, after short illness.
- March 15 - Kazim al-Samawi, 85, (born 1925), Iraqi poet. [43]
- March 20 – Ai, 62 (born 1947), American poet whose book Vice (1999) won the National Book Award for Poetry. Born Florence Anthony, she legally changed her name to Ai. [44]
- April 2 – Carolyn Rodgers, 69 (born 1940), American poet based in Chicago, participated in Gwendolyn Brooks's Writers Workshops and gained prominence as part of the Black Arts Movement. [45]
- April 5 – William Neill, 88 (born 1922), Scottish poet. [46]
- April 23 – Peter Porter, 81 (born 1929), Australian-born British poet. Associated with referred to in Britain as The Group, he was also recipient of the Medal of the Order of Australia. [47]
- May 6 – Hoàng Cầm, 88 (born 1922), Vietnamese poet and playwright [48]
- May 7 – Rane Arroyo, 55, (born 1954), American poet and playwright. [49]
- May 10 – David Chaloner, 65 (born 1944), English designer (of interior public spaces) and poet [50]
- May 17:
- Mukhran Machavariani (Georgian :მუხრან მაჭავარიანი), 81 (born 1929), Georgian poet, died while delivering a speech on the stage of the Rustaveli Theatre on the occasion of the 85th birthday of a fellow poet, Pridon Khalvashi [51]
- Judson Crews, 92, (born 1917), American poet, small press publisher, and bookseller. [52]
- May 18:
- Edoardo Sanguineti, 79, (born 1930), Italian poet, playwright, critic and winner of the Bagutta Prize. [53] [54]
- Peter Seaton, 67, (born 1942), American poet associated with the Language poetry movement, of an apparent heart attack. [55]
- May 20 – Alberto Valcárcel Acuña, 65, Peruvian [56] In a tribute to Valcarcel organized by Argentine poet Gabriel Impaglione, 30 poets recited free-verse poems on May 31. [57]
- May 21 – Driek van Wissen, 66, Dutch poet, intracranial hemorrhage [58]
- May 22 – Veturi (Telugu : వేటూరి సుందరరామమూర్తి), 74, Telugu-language Indian poet, journalist, writer and lyricist in the Indian cinema, cardiac arrest. [59]
- May 28 – Leslie Scalapino, 65, (born 1944), American poet, playwright, and editor, winner of the American Book Award. [60]
- May 30 – Peter Orlovsky, 76, (born 1933), American poet and lifelong companion of Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsberg.
- June 1 – Andrei Voznesensky, 77 (born 1933), Russian poet [61]
- June 7:
- June 16 – Allen Hoey, 57 (born 1952), American poet who received a Pulitzer prize nomination for his 2008 collection Country Music,, of a heart attack. [64]
- June 18 – Jose Saramago, 87 (born 1922), Portuguese novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, communist political commentator and winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for literature
- July 2 – Tommy Tabermann, 62 (born 1947), Finnish poet and politician [65]
- July 3 – Roberto Piva, 72 (born 1937), Brazilian poet and writer [66]
- July 5 – Pete Morgan, 71 (born 1939), English [67]
- July 12 – Tuli Kupferberg, 86, American Beat poet and singer [68]
- August 3 – Marilyn Buck, 62 (born 1947), radical American left-wing terrorist and poet
- August 15 – Ghazi Abdul Rahman Algosaibi, 70, (born 1940), Saudi Arabian statesman, writer, novelist and poet [69]
- August 16 – Narayan Gangaram Surve (Devanagari: नारायण गंगाराम सुर्वे), 83 (born 1926), Indian, Marathi-language poet [70]
- August 17:
- Ludvik Kundera, 90 (born 1920), Czech writer, translator, poet, playwright, editor and literary historian; a cousin of Milan Kundera [71]
- Edwin Morgan, 90 (born 1920), Scottish poet in English and Scots, appointed first "Scottish Makar" (national poet of Scotland) in 2004, an honor which he held the rest of his life [72]
- August 27:
- September 3:
- Micky Burn, 97 (born 1912), English writer, journalist, World War II commando and prize-winning poet [75]
- Carmelo Arden Quin, 97 (born 1913), Uruguayan poet, political writer, painter, sculptor and co-founder of the international artistic movement “Madi” [76]
- September 27:
- Michael Gizzi, 61 (born 1949), American poet and editor, author of more than 10 books of poetry [77]
- Carmelo Arden Quin, 97 (born 1913), Uruguayan poet, painter and sculptor [78]
- October 21:
- A. Ayyappan, 61 (born 1949), Indian poet [79]
- Kjell Landmark, 80 (born 1930), Norwegian poet and politician [80]
- October 22 – Alí Chumacero, 92 (born 1918), Mexican writer and poet [81]
- November 4:
- Viola Fischerová, 75 (born 1935), Czech poet [82]
- Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta, 76 (born 1934), Filipino poet [83]
- November 5 – Adrian Păunescu, 67 (born 1943), Romanian author, poet and politician. [84]
- November 9 – Ektor Kaknavatos, 90 (born 1920), Greek poet, pen name of Yorgis Kontoyorgis. [85]
- November 11 – Carlos Edmundo de Ory, 87 (born 1923), Spanish poet, leukemia. [86]
- November 29 – Bella Akhmadulina, 73, (born 1937), Soviet and Russian poet, short story writer and translator. [87]
- December 23 – Janine Pommy Vega, 68, (born 1942) American Beat Generation poet. [88]
