Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).
June 30 - Convicted assassin Charles Guiteau writes a poem called "I am Going to the Lordy", which he recites immediately before his execution the same day
William Allingham, Evil May-Day
F. J. Child, ed., The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, in 5 volumes (1882–98), including multiple versions of 305 ballads, American scholar published in England
Toru Dutt, Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hidnustan, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co. (fifth edition, 1927; reprinted several times by various publishers since then); Indian poet, writing in English, published in the United Kingdom
William Livingston (poet) (Uilleam Macdhunleibhe), Duain agus Orain, posthumous collection, Scottish Gaelic poet published in Scotland
George Robert Sims, The Dagonet Ballads
Algernon Charles Swinburne, Tristram of Lyonesse, and Other Poems
James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879), whose contributions to science were profound (including formulation of Maxwell's equations which for the first time expressed the basic laws of electricity and magnetism in a unified fashion, and other discoveries that helped usher in modern physics), this year became a published poet when a collection of his poems was published by his friend Lewis Campbell, two years after Maxwell's death.
As a great lover of British poetry, Maxwell memorized poems and wrote his own. The best known is Rigid Body Sings closely based on Comin' Through the Rye by Robert Burns, which he apparently used to sing while accompanying himself on a guitar. It has the immortal opening lines [1]:
Gin a body meet a body
Flyin' through the air.
Gin a body hit a body,
Will it fly? And where?
(Maxwell is also known for creating the first true-colour photograph in 1861.)
Bronson Alcott, Sonnets and Canzonets
Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Poems
George Henry Boker, The Book of the Dead
Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen, Idyls of Norway
Paul Hamilton Hayne, Collected Poems
Emma Lazarus, Songs of a Semite
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, In the Harbor: Ultima Thule, Part II
William Gilmore Simms, Works, 10 volumes, including poetry, New York; posthumous
Mary Ashley Townsend, Down the Bayou and Other Poems
Gabriele D'Annunzio, Canto novo, Italy
Octave Crémazie, Œuvres complètes, posthumous, Canada
Toru Dutt, Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hidnustan, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co. (fifth edition, 1927; reprinted several times since by various publishers), Indian poet, writing in English, published in the United Kingdom
Kalidasa, Sakuntalam translated from the original Sanskrit into Malayalam by Kerala Varma Valiya Koil Thampuran, India
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (Die fröhliche Wissenschaft), Germany, a study embracing poetry, philosophy and the author's "God is dead" view
Jacques Perk, Mathilde, posthumous, Netherlands
Friedrich Theodor Vischer, Lyrische Gänge ("Lyrical passages"), Germany
Iosif Vulcan, Lira mea ("My Lyre"), Romanian, published in Austria-Hungary
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
January 15 – Jun Kawada 川田 順 (died 1966), Japanese, Showa period tanka poet and entrepreneur
January 18 – A. A. Milne (died 1956), English author, playwright and writer of children's poetry best known for his books about the teddy bear, Winnie-the-Pooh, and for various children's poems
February 2 – James Joyce (died 1941), Irish writer and poet, widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century
February 4 – E. J. Pratt (died 1964), Canadian poet
February 6 – Anne Spencer (died 1975), American Black poet and active participant in the New Negro Movement
February 9 – James Stephens (died 1950), Irish novelist and poet (said he was born on this date; some think it may have been two years earlier (1880))
March 24 – Enid Derham (died 1941), Australian poet and academic
May 5 – Kyōsuke Kindaichi 金田一 京助 (died 1971), Japanese linguist and poet; his son is linguist Haruhiko Kindaichi
May 14 – Mokichi Saitō (died 1953), Japanese, Taishō period poet of the Araragi school and psychiatrist; father of novelist Kita Morio
June 1 – John Drinkwater (died 1937), English poet and dramatist
June 5 – Seemab Akbarabadi سیماب اکبرآبادی, born Aashiq Hussain Siddiqui (died 1951), Urdu poet from India
July 22 – Frederic Manning (died 1935), Australian poet and novelist
October 2 – Martin Armstrong (died 1974), English writer and poet
November 26 – Ikuma Arishima, 有島生馬 pen-name (together with Utosei and then Jugatsutei) of Arishima Mibuma (died 1974), Japanese novelist, poet and painter; member of the Shirakaba literary circle
December 3 – Santōka Taneda 種田 山頭火 pen name of Taneda Shōichi 種田 正一 (died 1940), author and haiku poet
December 5 – Natalia Negru (died 1962), Romanian poet
December 27 – Mina Loy (died 1966), English artist, poet, Futurist, actor, Christian Scientist, designer of lamps and bohemian
Also:
C. Subrahamania Bharati (died 1921), Indian, Tamil-language poet also writing Indian poetry in English
Wallace Gould (died 1940), American
Brian Vrepont (died 1955), Australian
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
February 8 – Berthold Auerbach (born (1812), German-Jewish poet and novelist
March 29 – Sibella Elizabeth Miles (born 1800), English poet, writer and schoolteacher
April 10 – Dante Gabriel Rossetti 63, English poet, illustrator, painter and translator
April 23 – William Brighty Rands (born 1823), English writer of nursery rhymes
April 27 – Ralph Waldo Emerson, 78, American author, poet and philosopher
March 24 – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 75, American poet
June 3 – James Thomson, 48, British poet whose fame rests primarily upon the reputation of his long poem of 1874, The City of Dreadful Night
August 1 – Henry Kendall (born 1839), Australian
August 25 (August 13 O.S.) – Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald (born 1803), Estonian author and poet
October 30 – William Forster (born 1818), Australian politician, Premier of New South Wales and poet
Also:
Charles R. Thatcher (born c. 1831), Australian
