1851 in poetry

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

Events
June – While waiting to cross the English Channel on honeymoon, English poet Matthew Arnold probably begins to compose the poem "Dover Beach" (published 1867).

United Kingdom

 * Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Poems Posthumous and Collected
 * Edward Henry Bickersteth, Nineveh
 * Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Casa Guidi Windows
 * Caroline Clive, under the pen name "V", The Valley of the Rea
 * Hartley Coleridge, Poems by Hartley Coleridge, edited by Derwent Coleridge (posthumous)
 * George Meredith, Poems, including the first version of "Love in the Valley"

United States

 * Thomas Holley Chivers, Eonchs of Ruby: A Gift of Love
 * Theodore Sedgwick Fay, Ulric; or, The Voices
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Golden Legend (republished under the title Christius 1872)
 * William Wilberforce Lord, Christ in Hades
 * Henry Theodore Tuckerman, Poems
 * Frances Fuller Victor, with Metta Victoria Victor, Poems of Sentiment and Imagination
 * William Ross Wallace, Meditations in America, and Other Poems

Works published in other languages

 * Hilario Ascasubi, Santos Vega o los mellizos de la Flor, Spanish-language, Argentina
 * Heinrich Heine, Romanzero, Germany
 * Micah Joseph Lebensohn, Shire Bat Ẓiyyon, Hebrew-language, Lithuania

Births
Dath years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * March 1 – Arthur Clement Hilton (died 1877), English
 * May 8 – James Lister Cuthbertson (died 1910), Australian
 * December 18 – John Farrell (died 1904), Australian
 * December 20 – Thérèse Schwartze (died 1918), Dutch portrait painter and poet
 * Date not known – Albery Allson Whitman (died 1901), African American

Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * February 1 – Mary Shelley (born 1797), English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, travel writer and poet
 * February 23 – Joanna Baillie (born 1762), Scottish poet and dramatist
 * July 6 – David Macbeth Moir (born 1798), Scottish physician and writer
 * October 31 (October 19 O.S.) – Petar II Petrović-Njegoš (born 1813), Serbian poet and Prince-Bishop of Montenegro
 * December 19 – Henry Luttrell (born 1768), English politician, wit and writer of society verse