1855 in poetry

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

Events

 * 12 June - Gaisford Prize founded

Canada

 * Charles Heavysege:
 * The revolt of Tartarus, a poem in six parts (Montreal).
 * Sonnets (Montreal: H. & G.M. Rose).

United Kingdom

 * William Allingham, The Music-Master, illustrated by Arthur Hughes, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and John Everett Millais
 * Matthew Arnold, Poems, Second Series (see also Poems 1853) including Balder Dead
 * Philip James Bailey, The Mystic, and Other Poems (see also Festus 1839)
 * William Cox Bennett:
 * Anti-Maud, "by a poet of the people"; parody of Alfred Lord Tennyson's Maud (see below)
 * War Songs
 * Robert Browning, Men and Women, including Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came
 * Edward Bulwer-Lytton, writing under the pen name "Owen Meredith", Clytemnestra; The Earl's Return; The Artist, and Other Poems
 * Thomas Campbell, The Pleasures of Hope, with Other Poems (first published 1799), illustrated by Birket Foster, George Housman Thomas and Harrison Weir
 * Sydney Dobell, writing under the pen name "S. Yendeys", and Alexander Smith, Sonnets on the War
 * Leigh Hunt, Stories in Verse, a collection of his narrative poems, original and translated
 * George MacDonald, Within and Without, the author's first published book
 * Louisa Shore, War Lyrics
 * Alfred Lord Tennyson, Maud, and Other Poems, including The Charge of the Light Brigade (first published in a periodical in 1854), Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington 1852 (see also William Cox Bennett's Anti-Maud parody, above)
 * Catherine Winkworth, Lyra Germanica, first series, a popular translation of Versuch eines allgemeinen evangelischen Gesang- und Gebetbuchs by Christian Karl Josias, Freiherr von Busen (second series published in 1858)

United States

 * Thomas Bailey Aldrich, The Bells: A Collection of Chimes
 * Augustine Joseph Hickey Duganne, Poetical Works, posthumously published
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha, a very popular poem, very often satirized from within days of its publication through the 20th century
 * Bayard Taylor:
 * Poems of the Orient
 * Poems of Home and Travel
 * Lucy Terry, first known African American poet, "Bars Fight, August 28, 1746", a ballad, posthumously published
 * Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, the first edition; Whitman would make many revisions in succeeding editions

Other

 * Christian Winther, Hjortens Flugt ("The Flight of the Hart"); Denmark

Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * May 1 – Marie Corelli (Mary Mackay) (died 1924), (UK)
 * May 21 – Emile Verhaeren (died 1916), (Belgian / French)
 * August 3 – Henry Cuyler Bunner (died 1896), American
 * September 12 – William Sharp (d 1905), Scots
 * December 15 – Maurice Bouchor (died 1929), French
 * December 28 – Juan Zorrilla de San Martín (Uruguay)
 * Also:
 * Devendranath Sen (died 1920), Indian, Bengali-language poet
 * Govardhanram N. Tripathi (died 1907), Indian, Gujarati-language novelist and poet
 * Alexander Young, Scots

Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * January 10 - Mary Russell Mitford (UK)
 * January 25 - Dorothy Wordsworth (UK)
 * January 26 - Gérard de Nerval, French
 * March 31 - Charlotte Brontë (UK)
 * June 29 - Delphine de Girardin, French
 * November 26 - Adam Mickiewicz (born 1798), Polish Romantic poet, died in Istanbul while he was organizing Polish and Jewish volunteers to fight against Russia in the Crimean War
 * December 18 - Samuel Rogers (UK)
 * Also:
 * Robert Montgomery
 * Mahmud Gami (born 1765), Indian, Kashmiri-language poet