1881 in poetry

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

Events

 * Frederick James Furnivall founds the Browning Society

Canada

 * Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon, Poetical Works, posthumously published, Canada
 * Pamela Vining Yule. Poems of the Heart and Home.

United Kingdom

 * Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, The Love Sonnets of Proteus (see also Sonnets and Songs 1875, Love Lyrics 1892)
 * Katherine Harris Bradley and Edith Emma Cooper, writing as "Arran and Islan Leigh", Bellerophon, and Other Poems
 * Amy Levy, Xantippe, and Other Verse
 * George Moore, Pagan Poems
 * Christina Rossetti, A Pageant, and other Poems
 * Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ballads and Sonnets, with "The House of Life" complete, and Poems
 * Oscar Wilde, Poems, three editions published this year, first edition in June

United States

 * Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Friar Jerome's Beautiful Book
 * Ina Coolbrith, A Perfect Day
 * James Thomas Fields, Ballads and Other Verses, Boston: Houghton Mifflin & Company, Riverside Press imprint, United States
 * Joel Chandler Harris, Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, including poetry
 * Fitz-James O'Brien, Poems and Stories
 * Epes Sargent, Harper's Cyclopaedia of British and American Poets (scholarship), posthumously published, United States
 * John Greenleaf Whittier, The King's Missive

Works published in other languages

 * François Coppée, Conies en tiers
 * Victor Hugo, Les Quatres vents de l'esprit, France

Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * January 9 - Lascelles Abercrombie (died 1938), British poet and literary critic called the Georgian Laureateand one of the "Dymock poets"
 * February 13 – Eleanor Farjeon (died 1965) English author and poet
 * April 6 – Furnley Maurice (died 1942), Australian
 * April 16 – Alice Corbin Henderson (died 1949), American poet
 * August 1 – Aizu Yaichi 会津 八一 (died 1956), Japanese poet, calligrapher and historian (surname: Aizu)
 * August 10 – Witter Bynner (died 1968), American poet, writer and scholar
 * August 20 – Edgar Albert Guest (died 1959), prolific American poet
 * September 16 – Clive Bell (died 1964) was an English critic, associated with the Bloomsbury group
 * October 30 – Elizabeth Madox Roberts (died 1941), American novelist and poet
 * November 15:
 * Franklin Pierce Adams (died 1960), American columnist (under the pen name F.P.A.), writer, and wit, part of the famous Algonquin Round Table of the 1920s and 1930s whose newspaper column introduced the public to many poets and writers
 * Masamune Atsuo 正宗敦夫 (died 1958), Japanese poet and academic (surname: Masamune)
 * December 8 – Padraic Colum (died 1972) Irish poet, novelist, dramatist, biographer,  collector of folklore and one of the leading figures of the Celtic Revival
 * Also:
 * Swami Ananda Acharya (died 1945), Indian poet who wrote Indian poetry in English
 * John Cournos (died 1966), Russian-American Imagist poet, but better known for his novels, short stories, essays, criticism and translations of Russian literature; wrote under the pen name "John Courtney"
 * Deepakba Desai (died 1955), Indian, Gujarati-language woman poet who wrote khandakavyas
 * Ardoshir Faramji Kharbardar (died 1953), Indian, Gujarati-language, Parsi poet
 * Alan Mulgan (died 1962), New Zealand
 * Ernest O'Ferrall (died 1925), Australian, poet who wrote under the pseudonym "Kodak"
 * Jaime Sabartés (died 1968), Spanish poet and longtime secretary to Pablo Picasso
 * Puran Singh (died 1931), Indian, writing Indian poetry in English
 * Sotiris Skipis (died 1951), Greek

Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * January 30 – Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy, 36, British poet
 * August 2 – Marcus Clarke (born 1846), Australian novelist and poet
 * September 7 – Sidney Lanier, 39, American musician and poet
 * Josiah Gilbert Holland, American novelist and poet