Wilkins, Martyn A. Ford, James Sutherland-Smith United States AML Award for "Poetry Honorable Mention" Clinton F. Larson for "The Western World " and Marden J. Clark for "God's Plenty" and Marilyn McMeen Miller Brown for "Grandmother" Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (later the post would be called "Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress"): William Meredith appointed this year. National Book Award for Poetry: Howard Nemerov, The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Howard Nemerov, The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov Walt Whitman Award: Karen Snow, Wonders Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets: Josephine Miles France Guillaume Apollinaire prize: Jean-Claude Renard, La Lumière du silence Other Cuba: Casa de las Américas prize for poetry: Claribel Alegria of El Salvador, for Sobrevivo Soviet Union: USSR State Prize: Andrei Voznesensky Births June 7 – Jesse Ball, American poet and writer October 24 – Kei Miller, Jamaican-born poet and writer September 4 – Natalie Diaz, Mojave American poet, language activist, professional basketball player and educator Also Jen Hadfield, English poet and visual artist J. O. Morgan, Scottish poet Deaths Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article: January 20 – Gilbert Highet, 71, Scottish-American classicist, academic, writer, intellectual, critic and literary historian, of cancer February 2 – G. Sankara Kurup, 76 (born 1901), Indian Malayalam-language poet February 22 – Phyllis McGinley, 72 (born 1905), American children's story writer and poet March 19 – Faith Baldwin, 84, American romantic novelist and poet March 22 – John Hall Wheelock, 91, American poet April 14 – F.R. Leavis, 82, English literary critic April 16 – Elizabeth Rebecca Ward, 97, English versifier May 1 – Sylvia Townsend Warner, 84, English novelist and poet May 12 – Louis Zukofsky, 74, American modernist poet July 2 – Aris Alexandrou, 56, Greek poet June 3 – Frank Stanford, 29, American poet, by suicide September 9 – Hugh MacDiarmid, 86, Scottish poet Also: Sankara Kurup (born 1901), Indian, Malayalam-language poet P. Kunhiraman Nair (born 1909), Indian, Malayalam-language poet J. Rodolfo Wilcock (born 1919), Argentine author and poet Notes Britannica Book of the Year 1979 ("for events of 1978"), published by Encyclopædia Britannica 1979 (source of many items in "Works published" section and rarely in other sections) See also Poetry List of poetry awards List of years in poetry 20th-century poetry Poetry