1876 in poetry

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).

The Sweet Singer of Michigan Salutes the Public
This year Poetaster Julia A. Moore's first book of verse, The Sentimental Song Book, was published in Grand Rapids, and quickly went into a second printing. A copy fell into the hands of one James F. Ryder, a Cleveland, Ohio, publisher who recognized its awful majesty and soon republished it under the title The Sweet Singer of Michigan Salutes the Public. Ryder sent out numerous review copies to newspapers across the country, with a cover letter filled with low key mock praise.

And so Moore received national attention. Following Ryder's lead, contemporary reviews were amusedly negative. For instance, The Rochester Democrat wrote of Sweet Singer, that "Shakespeare, could he read it, would be glad that he was dead …. If Julia A. Moore would kindly deign to shed some of her poetry on our humble grave, we should be but too glad to go out and shoot ourselves tomorrow."

United Kingdom

 * Robert Bridges, The Growth of Love (revised and expanded in 1889)
 * Robert Browning, Pacchiarotto and How He Worked in Distemper; with Other Poems
 * Edward Dowden, Poems
 * Toru Dutt, A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields: Verse Translations and Poems, Bhowanipur, Calcutta: B. M. Bose (expanded edition, Bhowanipur: Saptahik Sambad Press 1878; London: Kegan Paul 1880); Indian poet, writing in English, published in the United Kingdom
 * Dora Greenwell, Camera Obscura
 * William Morris, The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs
 * Emily Pfeiffer, Poems
 * Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, edited by Harry Buxton Forman, eight volumes published from this year through 1880

United States

 * Ralph Waldo Emerson, Selected Poems
 * Herman Melville, Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land
 * Julia A. Moore, The Sentimental Song Book (republished asThe Sweet Singer of Michigan Salutes the Public.
 * Bayard Taylor, The Echo Club and Other Literary Diversions
 * Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, sixth edition
 * John Greenleaf Whittier, Mabel Martin

Other in English

 * Toru Dutt, A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields: Verse Translations and Poems, Bhowanipur, Calcutta: B. M. Bose (expanded edition, Bhowanipur: Saptahik Sambad Press 1878; London: Kegan Paul 1880); Indian poet, writing in English, published in the United Kingdom
 * Behramji Merwanji Malabari, editor, The Indian Muse in English Garb, Bombay: Merwanji Nowroji, Daboo, 99 pages; Indian poetry in English

France

 * François Coppée, Olivier
 * Stéphane Mallarmé, L'après-midi d'un faune ("Afternoon of a Faun", or "A Faun in the Afternoon"), published in April, with illustrations by Manet
 * Catulle Mendès, Poesies, jere serie

Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * January 25 – William Ellery Leonard (died 1944), American
 * March 4 – Léon-Paul Fargue (died 1947), French editor, poet and essayist
 * March 15 – Kambara Ariake 蒲原有明 pen-name of Kambara Hayao (died 1952), Japanese, Taishō and Showa period poet and novelist
 * July 12 – Max Jacob (died 1944), French painter, poet and critic
 * September 7 – C.J. Dennis (died 1938), Australian poet who wrote The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke
 * October 4 – Hugh McCrae (died 1958), Australian
 * December 9 – Mizuho Ōta 太田水穂 pen-name of "Teiichi Ōta" 太田 貞, he occasionally also used another pen name, "Mizuhonoya" (died 1955), Japanese, Shōwa period poet and literary scholar
 * Also:
 * Sarah Cleghorn (died 1959), American poet and socialist
 * Alice Guèrin Crist (died 1941), Australian
 * William Lawson (writer) (died 1957), Australian
 * Saishu Onoe 尾上柴舟 (died 1957), tanka poet and calligrapher

Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * June 20 – John Neal, 82 (born 1793), author, art critic, literary critic and poet, who refused to emulate British authors by writing strictly in a clean tone, instead writing more as he spoke and allowing his characters to speak gruffly, if the story called for it; also an early women's rights advocate, prohibitionist, temperance advocate, accomplished lawyer, boxer, and architect who reportedly, at the age of 79, threw a smoker off a non-smoking trolley when the man refused to stop
 * July 14 – Charles Heavysege (born 1816), Canadian
 * December 27 – Frederik Paludan-Muller (born 1809), Danish
 * December 30 – Christian Winther (born 1796), Danish
 * Also:
 * Gu Taiqing (born 1799), Chinese poet during the Qing Dynasty
 * Maqbool Shah Kralawari (born 1820), Indian, Kashmiri-language poet