1887 in poetry

Works published

British Australia">Australian poetry">British Australia

• Henry Lawson, "A Song for the Republic", English, the author's first published poem, in The Bulletin, October 1 issue; Australia

British India">Indian poetry">British India

• Narsinhrao Divetia, Kusumamala, Gujarati, his first collection of poems, "considered a definite advance in modern Gujarati poetry because of its novel use of poetic diction", according to A handbook of Indian Literature
• Kandukuri Veeresalingam, Narada Samvadam, Telugu long poem condemning banal, rule-minded poetry

Canada">Canadian poetry">Canada

• George Frederick Cameron, Lyrics on Freedom, Love and Death, English, posthumously published.
• Louis-Honoré Fréchette, La légende d'un peuple, French, the author's best-known work, about episodes of Canadian history; French Canadian author published in Paris
• Sarah Anne Curzon, Laura Secord, the Heroine of 1812: A Drama, and Other Poems, English.
• Susie Frances ed. The Canadian Birthday Book, English, poetry anthology..
• William Douw Lighthall, Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure, English..
• Thomas O'Hagan, A Gate of birginas, English.

France">French poetry">France

• François Coppée, Arriere-saison; French
• Stéphane Mallarmé; all in French:
• *Poésies, in a deluxe, limited edition published in October
• * Album de vers et de prose, published in December

Ireland">Irish poetry">Ireland

• William Butler Yeats, editor, Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland, English, an anthology, Dublin, Ireland

United Kingdom">English poetry">United Kingdom

• William Allingham, Rhymes for Young Folk, English.
• Robert Browning, Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in their Day, English.
• Richard Le Gallienne, My Lady's Sonnets
• George Meredith, Ballads and Poems of Tragic Life, English.
• Constance Naden, A modern apostle; The elixir of life; The story of Clarice, and other poems, English.
• Robert Louis Stevenson, Underwoods, English.
• Algernon Charles Swinburne, The Jubilee, English.
• Katharine Tynan, Shamrocks, English, published in the United Kingdom by an Irish poet.

United States">American poetry">United States

• Charles Follen Adams, Dialect Ballads, English
• Amos Bronson Alcott, New Connecticut, English
• Arlo Bates, Sonnets in Shadow, English
• Palmer Cox, The Brownies: Their Book, English, children's fictional poetry
• Emma Lazarus, By The Waters of Babylon, English
• Jessie Wilson Manning, The passion of life, English
• Lizette Woodworth Reese, A Branch of May, English
• James Whitcomb Riley, Afterwhiles, English

Births

• January 10 – Robinson Jeffers, American poet and playwright
• February 3 – Georg Trakl, German
• February 11 – Shinobu Orikuchi 折口 信夫, also known as Chōkū Shaku 釋 迢空, Japanese ethnologist, linguist, folklorist, novelist and poet; a disciple of Kunio Yanagita, he establishes an academic field named "Orikuchiism", a mix of Japanese folklore, Japanese classics and Shintō religion
• March 9 – Ion Buzdugan, born Ivan Alexandrovici Buzdâga, Bessarabian-Romanian poet, folklorist and politician
• May 10 – J. C. Bloem, Dutch
• May 13 – Nagata Mikihiko 長田幹彦, Shōwa period poet, playwright and screenwriter
• May 15 – Edwin Muir, Scottish poet, novelist and translator
• May 16 – Jakob van Hoddis, German
• May 31 - Saint-John Perse, French diplomat, poet and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1960
• June 20 – Kurt Schwitters, German
• June 22 – Sir Julian Sorell Huxley, English evolutionary biologist, humanist and internationalist
• June 28 – Orrick Glenday Johns, American poet
• August 3 – Rupert Brooke, English poet
• August 19 – Francis Ledwidge, Irish poet, "poet of the blackbirds"
• September 1 – Blaise Cendrars, pen name of Frédéric Louis Sauser, Swiss novelist and poet naturalized as a French citizen in 1916
• September 7 – Edith Sitwell, English poet and critic
• September 21 – Sir Thomas Herbert Parry-Williams, Welsh poet, translator and academic
• September 16 – Hans Arp, German
• September 27 – Frederick Macartney, Australian
• October 11 – Pierre Jean Jouve, French poet and novelist
• October 30 – Georg Heym, German poet
• November 15 – Marianne Moore, American Modernist poet and writer
• December 6 – Minakami Takitarō 水上滝太郎 pen name of Abe Shōzō, Japanese, Shōwa period poet, novelist, literary critic and essayist
• December 8 – Elizabeth Daryush, English poet, daughter of Robert Bridges
• December 27 – Edward Andrade, English physicist and poet.
• December 30 – K.M. Munshi, Indian Gujarati-language novelist, playwright, writer, politician and lawyer
• Also:
• * Skipwith Cannell, American poet associated with the Imagist group
• * Margaret Curran, Australian poet, editor and journalist
• * Alphonse Métérié, French newspaper editor, teacher and poet
• * Ramnarayan V. Pathak, Indian, Gujarati-language poet and husband of Heera Pathak
• * Sukumar Ray, Indian, Gujarati-language humorous poet, short-story writer and playwright
• * Jatindranath Sengupta, Indian, Gujarati-language poet and writer

Deaths

• February 27 – Edward Rowland Sill, American
• July 15 – Adrien Rouquette, American poet and missionary
• October 12 – Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, born Dinah Maria Mulock, also referred to as Miss Mulock or Mrs. Craik, English novelist and poet
• November 19 – Emma Lazarus, American poet who wrote the sonnet "The New Colossus", associated with the Statue of Liberty, where it is engraved on a plaque
• date not known – Isabella Valancy Crawford, Canadian, from heart failure