1960 in poetry

• Spring – August Derleth launches the poetry magazine Hawk and Whippoorwill in the United States.
• September 5 – Welsh poet Waldo Williams is imprisoned for six weeks for non-payment of income tax (a protest against defence spending).^[1]
• An inscription of an excerpt of the Poema de Fernán González is discovered on a roofing tile in Merindad de Sotoscueva, the earliest known record of it.

Listed by nation where the work was first published and again by the poet's native land, if different; substantially revised works listed separately:

• Margaret Avison, Winter Sun^[2]
• Daryl Hine, The Devil's Picture Book^[3]
• Kenneth McRobbie, Eyes Without a Face^[2]
• Eli Mandel, Fuseli Poems^[3]
• Peter Miller, Sonata for Frog and Man^[2]

• Edmund Snow Carpenter, American anthropologist, editor, Anerca, anonymous Eskimo poems, with drawings by Enooesweetok^[2]
• A. J. M. Smith, editor, The Oxford book of Canadian verse, in English and French, including untranslated poems in French combined in chronological order with English-language poems^[2]

• Nissim Ezekiel, The Unfinished Man: Poems Written in 1959, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India^[4]
• Dom Moraes, John Nobody,^[5] Indian at this time living in the United Kingdom
• Deb Kumar Das, The Night before Us, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India^[6]
• Pradip Sen, And Then the Sun, first edition (revised edition, 1968), Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India^[7]
• Raul De Loyola Furtado, The Oleanders and Other Poems, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, India^[4]
• Keshav Malik, The Rippled Shadow^[8]
• Barjor Paymaster, the Last Farewell and Other Poems, Bombay: Asia Publishing House^[8]
• V. Madhusudan Reddy, Sapphires of Solitude, Hyderabad: V. Man Mohan Reddy^[8]
• Sasthi Brata, Eleven Poems, Calcutta: published by the author^[4]

• W. H. Auden, Homage to Clio^[2]
• Sir John Betjeman, Summoned by Bells^[9]
• Edwin Bronk, A Family Affair, Northwood, Middlesex: Scorpion Press^[10]
• Austin Clarke, The Hore-Eaters (see also Ancient Lights 1955, Too Great a Vine 1957)^[9]
• Patric Dickinson, The World I See^[9]
• Lawrence Durrell, Collected Poems^[2]
• D. J. Enright, Some Men Are Brothers^[2]
• Ted Hughes, Lupercal, London: Faber and Faber; New York: Harper^[2][10]
• John Knight, Straight Lines and Unicorns^[2]
• Peter Levi, The Gravel Ponds^[2]
• Patrick Kavanagh, Come Dance with Kitty Stobling^[2]
• Norman MacCaig, A Common Grace^[2]
• Dom Moraes, Poems, Indian at this time living in the United Kingdom
• Edwin Muir, Collected Poems (posthumous)^[2]
• Sylvia Plath, The Colossus and Other Poems,^[9] American at this time living in the United Kingdom
• William Plomer, Collected Poems^[2]
• Peter Redgrove, The Collector, and Other Poems, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul^[2][9][10]
• James Reeves, Collected Poems 1929–59^[9]
• Charles Tomlinson, Seeing is Believing^[2]
• Andrew Young, Collected Poems^[2]

• John Ashbery, The Poems^[11]
• W. H. Auden, Homage to Clio^[11]
• Paul Blackburn, Brooklyn Manhattan Transit: A Bouquet for Flatbush
• Gwendolyn Brooks, The Bean Eaters,^[11] including "We Real Cool"
• Witter Bynner, New Poems^[11]
• Gregory Corso, The Happy Birthday of Death^[11]
• Louis Coxe, The Middle Passage^[11]
• E. E. Cummings, Collected Poems
• James Dickey, Into the Stone^[11]
• Robert Duncan:
  • The Opening of the Field^[11]
  • Selected Poems, San Francisco: City Lights Books^[2][10]
• Richard Eberhart, Collected Poems 1930–1960^[11]
• Paul Engle, Poems in Praise, including the sonnet sequence "For the Iowa Dead"
• Jean Garrigue, A Water Walk by Villa d'Este^[2]
• Ramon Guthrie, Graffiti^[2]
• Anthony Hecht, A Bestiary^[11]
• Daryl Hine, The Devil's Picture Book^[11]
• Daniel G. Hoffman, A Little Geste and Other Poems^[11]
• Randall Jarrell, The Woman at the Washington Zoo, New York: Atheneum^[10]
• LeRoi Jones, Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note, New York: Totem/Corinth Books^[10]
• Donald Justice, The Summer Anniversaries^[11]
• Weldon Kees, The Collected Poems of Weldon Kees posthumous, edited by Donald Justice
• Jack Kerouac, Mexico City Blues^[2]
• Galway Kinnell, What a Kingdom It Was, Boston: Houghton Mifflin^[10]
• Denise Levertov, With Eyes at the Back of Our Heads^[2]
• Robert Lowell, Life Studies, New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy^[10]
• Phyllis McGinley, Times Three: Selected Verse from Three Decades^[11]
• James Merrill, Water Street, Atheneum Publishers^[12]
• W. S. Merwin:
  • The Drunk in the Furnace, New York: Macmillan (reprinted as part of The First Four Books of Poems, 1975)^[13]
  • Translator, The Satires of Persius, Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press^[13]
• Joesphine Miles, Poems 1930–1960^[11]
• Howard Moss, A Winter Come, a Summer Gone: Poems 1946-1960, New York: Scribner's^[10]
• Howard Nemerov, New and Selected Poems, University of Chicago Press^[10]
• John Frederick Nims, Knowledge of the Evening^[11]
• Charles Olson:
  • The Distances, New York: Grove Press^[10]
  • The Maximus Poems, New York: Jargon/Corinth Books^[10]
• Kenneth Patchen, Because It Is^[11]
• Ezra Pound, Thrones: 96-109 de los Cantares, multi-lingual cantos^[2]
• Carl Sandburg, Wind Song^[11]
• Anne Sexton, To Bedlam and Part Way Back, Boston: Houghton Mifflin^[10]
• Wilfred Townley Scott, Scrimshaw^[2]
• W. D. Snodgrass, Heart's Needle^[2]
• Gary Snyder, Myths and Texts^[11]
• William Stafford, West of Your City^[11]
• Eleanor Ross Taylor, Wilderness of Ladies^[14]
• Theodore Weiss, Outlanders, New York: Macmillan^[10]
• Reed Whittemore, The Self-Made Man and Other Poems^[2]
• Yvor Winters, Collected Poems, Chicago: The Swallow Press^[12]

• Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren, Understanding Poetry (college textbook), originally published in 1938, goes into its third edition (a fourth will be published in 1976)
• Ed Dorn, What I See in the Maximum Poems, Migrant Press (criticism)^[15]
• Karl Shapiro, In Defense of Ignorance, an attack on the dominant critical values of modern poetry in the vein of T. S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats and Ezra Pound

The New American Poetry 1945-1960, a poetry anthology edited by Donald Allen, and published in 1960, aimed to pick out the "third generation" of American modernist poets. In the longer term it attained a classic status, with critical approval and continuing sales. It was reprinted in 1999.

Poets represented:

Helen Adam – John Ashbery – Paul Blackburn – Robin Blaser – Ebbe Borregaard – Bruce Boyd – Ray Bremser – Brother Antoninus – James Broughton – Paul Carroll – Gregory Corso – Robert Creeley – Edward Dorn – Kirby Doyle – Robert Duerden – Robert Duncan – Larry Eigner – Lawrence Ferlinghetti – Edward Field – Allen Ginsberg – Madeline Gleason – Barbara Guest – LeRoi Jones – Jack Kerouac – Kenneth Koch – Philip Lamantia – Denise Levertov – Ron Loewinsohn – Edward Marshall – Michael McClure – David Meltzer – Frank O'Hara – Charles Olson – Joel Oppenheimer – Peter Orlovsky – Stuart Perkoff – James Schuyler – Gary Snyder – Gilbert Sorrentino – Jack Spicer – Lew Welch – Philip Whalen – John Wieners – Jonathan Williams

• Allen Curnow, The Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse, New Zealand^[16]

Listed by nation where the work was first published and again by the poet's native land, if different; substantially revised works listed separately:

• Anne Hébert, Poèmes^[2]
• Michèle Lalonde:
  • Songe de la fiancée détruite^[2]
  • Geôles^[2]
• Paul Morin, Géronte et son mirior^[2]
• Jean-Guy Pilon, La mouette et le large, Montréal: l'Hexagone^[17]
• Yves Préfontaine, L'Antre du poème^[2]
• Pierre Trottier, Les Belles au bois dormant^[2]
• Gilles Vigneault, Etraves^[2]

• Gérard Bessette, Les Images en poésie canadienne-française^[2]

• Louis Aragon, Les Poetes^[18]
• Aimé Césaire, Ferrements, Martinique author published in France;^[19] Paris: Editions du Seuil
• Georges-Emmanuel Clancier, Evidences^[2]
• Michel Deguy, Fragments du cadastre^[19]
• Mohammed Dib, Ombre gardienne, with a preface by Louis Aragon^[18]
• Jean Follain, Des Heures^[19]
• Paul Géraldy, Vous et moi^[2]
• Pierre Jean Jouve, Proses^[2]
• Pierre Oster, Un nom toujours nouveau^[18]
• Saint-John Perse, Chronique^[19]
• Jacques Prévert, Histoires^[19]
• Tchicaya U Tam'si, À triche-coeur

• Manuel Blanco-González, La luna et lluvia^[2]
• Dolores Castro, Cantares de vela^[2]
• Pablo Antonio Cuadra, El jaguar y la luna (Nicaragua), winner of the Rubén Darío Prize^[2]
• Manuel Durán, La paloma azul^[2]
• Germán Pardo García, Centauro al sol^[2]
• León de Greiff, Obras completas, with a preliminary study by Jorge Zalamea (Colombia)^[2]
• Carlos García-Prada, editor, Escala del sueño, anthology of 35 Castilian lyrical poets^[2]
• Elías Nandino, Nocturna palabra (Mexico)^[2]

• Emilio Armaza, Eguren, an anthology and analysis of the Peruvian poet's verse^[2]
• Antonio Oliver Belmás, Este otro Rubén Darío^[2]
• Gastón Figueira, De la vida y la obra de Gabriela Mistral^[2]
• Manuel Pedro González, editor, Antología crítica de José Marti, including writing by Darío, Gabriela Mistral, Unamuno, and Onís^[2]
• Glen L. Kolb, Juan del Valle y Caviedes, "A Study of the Life, Times and Poetry of a Spanish Colonial Satirist"^[2]
• Eduardo Neale-Silva, Horizonte humano, the first detailed biographical study of the Colombian poet José Eustasio Rivera^[2]
• Federico de Onís, Luis Palês Matos—vida y obra-bibliografía, antología, poesías, inéditas, a study of the Puerto Rican poet's life and artistic development^[2]

• Odysseus Elytis, Έξη και μια τύψεις για τον ουρανό ("Six Plus One Remorses For The Sky"), Greece
• H. M. Enzensberger, editor, Museum der modernen Poesie, anthology of international modernist poetry, German^[20]
• Alaíde Foppa, Los dedos de mi mano ("The Fingers of my Hand"), Guatemalan poet published in Mexico^[21]
• Haim Gouri, Shoshanat Ruhot ("Compass Rose"), Israeli writing in Hebrew
• Jess Ørnsbo, Digte ("Poems"), Denmark^[22]
• Klaus Rifbjerg, Konfrontation, Denmark^[22]
• Kedarnath Singh, Abhi Bilkul Abhi, Allahabad: Natya Sahitya Prakashan; India, Hindi^[23]

• Nobel Prize in Literature: St. John Perse (France)

• Eric Gregory Award: Christopher Levenson
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: John Betjeman

• National Book Award for Poetry: Robert Lowell, Life Studies
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: W. D. Snodgrass: Heart's Needle
• Bollingen Prize: Delmore Schwartz
• Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets: Jesse Stuart

• First State Poetry Price (Greece): Odysseus Elytis
• Prix Dante (France): Pierre Jean Jouve^[24]
• Canada: Governor General's Award, poetry or drama: Winter Sun, Margaret Avison^[25]
• Canada: Governor General's Award, Poésie et théâtre: Poèmes, Anne Hébert^[25]

• January 28 – Robert von Dassanowsky, American academic, writer, poet, film and cultural historian and producer
• February 12 – George Elliott Clarke, Canadian poet and playwright
• April 1 – Frieda Hughes, English-born poet, children's writer and painter
• May 5 - Thomas Boberg, Danish poet and travel writer
• August 31 – Makarand Paranjape, Indian poet
• October 30 – Kathleen Flenniken, American writer, poet, editor and educator
• December 22 – Elvis McGonagall, born Richard Smith, Scottish-born slam poet
• Jeffery Donaldson, Canadian poet, critic and theorist
• Katrina Porteous, Scottish-born poet
• Dipti Saravanamuttu, Sri Lankan-Australian poet, academic, journalist and script writer, moves to Australia as a child in 1972
• Alexis Stamatis, Greek poet
• Karenne Wood, Native American poet