1883 in poetry

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

United Kingdom

 * William Allingham, The Fairies, including "Up the airy mountain ..."; reprinted from Poems 1850
 * Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, The Wind and the Whirwind
 * Robert Bridges, Prometheus the Firegiver
 * Robert Browning, Jocoseria
 * George Meredith, Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, A Century of Roundels

United States

 * Francis James Child, editor, English and Scottish Popular Ballads, an anthology published in five volumes from this year to 1898
 * Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Decorative Plaques
 * Emma Lazarus writes "The New Colossus" in aid of the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund for the New York Statue of Liberty
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Michael Angelo, posthumously published
 * James Whitcomb Riley, The Old Swimmin'-Hole and 'Leven More Poems
 * John Greenleaf Whittier, The Bay of Seven Islands
 * Jones Very, Poems, published posthumously
 * Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Poems of Passion

Works published in other languages

 * Victor Hugo, La Légende des siècles, third series (first series 1859, second series 1877)
 * Paul Verlaine, in November publishes an influential essay on Stéphane Mallarmé, which is later reprinted in the book Les Poetès maudits; France

Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * January 6 – Khalil Gibran (died 1931), Lebanese American poet and artist
 * February 18 – Nikos Kazantzakis, Greek
 * March 13 – Kōtarō Takamura 高村 光太郎 (died 1956), Japanese poet and sculptor; son of sculptor Kōun Takamura
 * June 27 – Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy (died 1929), English Anglican priest and poet
 * August 11 – Ernst Stadler (died 1914), German poet
 * September 16 – T.E. Hulme (died 1917 in World War I), influential English poetry critic
 * September 17 – William Carlos Williams, American
 * December 12 – William Baylebridge (died 1942)), Australian poet and short-story writer
 * Also:
 * Ethel Anderson, (died 1958), Australian
 * Charles Badger Clark, American
 * Arthur Davison Ficke, American
 * Alfred Kreymborg, (died 1966), American poet, novelist, playwright, literary editor and anthologist
 * Jessie Litchfield, (died 1956), Australian
 * Marjorie Pickthall, Canadian
 * K. V. Simon, (died 1943), Indian, Malayalam-language poet

Deaths
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * January 5 – Charles Tompson (born 1806), Australian public servant and said to be the first published Australian-born poet
 * June 14 – Charles Timothy Brooks, 96, American poet and translator
 * Edward Fitzgerald, 74, English poet and translator, best known for his translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
 * George Moses Horton (born 1797), American