1831 in poetry

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

United Kingdom

 * John Banim and Michael Banim, The Chaunt of the Cholera
 * Henry Glassford Bell, Summer and Winter Hours
 * Thomas Campbell, Poland: A Poem. Lines on the View from St. Leonard's
 * James Hogg, Songs, by the Ettrick Shepherd
 * Thomas Hood, The Dream of Eugene Aram, the Murderer
 * Charles Lamb, anonymously published, Satan in Search of a Wife
 * Walter Savage Landor, Gebir, Count Julian and Other Poems (Geber originally published 1798; Count Julian originally published 1812)
 * Winthrop Mackworth Praed, The Ascent of Elijah
 * Letitia Elizabeth Landon, writing under the pen name "L.E.L." Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1832

United States

 * William Cullen Bryant, "Song of Marion's Men", lyric poem, about Francis Marion, an American military figure in the American Revolution
 * Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., "The Last Leaf", about an aging participant in the Boston Tea Party
 * Lowell Mason, Church Psalmody
 * Edgar Allan Poe, Poems by Edgar Allan Poe, Second Edition, including early, unrevised versions of some of the author's most significant verses, including "To Helen", "Israfel" and "The Doomed City"; the preface, "Letter to B", discusses Poe's critical theories, much of which was borrowed from Samuel Taylor Coleridge
 * Samuel Francis Smith, "America", five stanzas; one of the most popular patriotic hymns in the United States, written at Lowell Mason's request; composed in 30 minutes; set to the music of the British anthem "God Save the King" and first sung at an Independence Day gathering in Boston; known for its opening line "My country 'tis of thee", published by Mason in The Choir 1832
 * William Joseph Snelling, Truth: A New Year's Gift for Scribblers, a verse satire on contemporary poets, calling many of them inferior, especially those portraying American Indians with stereotypes
 * John Greenleaf Whittier, Legends of New-England in Prose and Verse, the author's first book; uncomfortable with the gothic style of the volume, Whittier suppressed it later
 * Emma Hart Willard, The Fulfillment of a Promise, includes "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep", about the poet's trip home from Europe, which became a very popular poem set to music by Joseph P. Knight
 * Nathaniel Parker Willis, Poem Delivered Before the Society of United Brothers

Other

 * Victor Hugo, Les Feuilles d'automne, France
 * Giacomo Leopardi, Canti, Italy
 * George Métivier, Rimes Guernesiaises, Guernsey

Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * March 18 – David Mills (died 1903), Canadian poet, politician, author and jurist
 * June 13 – James Clerk Maxwell (died 1879), Scottish mathematician and theoretical physicist whose poetry was published by a friend in 1881, two years after his death
 * July 7 – Jane Elizabeth Conklin (died 1914), American poet and religious writer
 * September 12 – Álvares de Azevedo (died 1852), Brazilian
 * October 17 – Isa Craig (died 1903), Scots
 * November 8 – Robert Bulwer-Lytton (died 1891), English novelist and poet
 * December 22 – Charles Stuart Calverley, English poet, wit and literary father of what has been called "the university school of humour"
 * Date not known – Charles R. Thatcher (thought to have died in 1882), Australian

Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * January 14 – Henry Mackenzie (born 1745), Scottish novelist, writer, critic and poet
 * January 21 – Ludwig Achim von Arnim (born 1781), German poet and novelist
 * March 8 - Laurence Hynes Halloran, 64, Irish-Australian pioneer schoolteacher and journalist; publishes poetry before being shipped to Australia as a convict
 * May 11 – John Trumbull, 81 (born 1750), American
 * June 30 - William Roscoe (born 1753), English poet
 * December 23 - Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, 22 (born 1809), Indian poet writing in English and academic of Eurasian and Portuguese descent
 * Also - Ryōkan 良寛 (born 1758), Japanese waka poet and calligrapher, Buddhist monk, often a hermit