1855 in poetry

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

Events

 * June 12 – Gaisford Prize founded
 * September 27 – Alfred Tennyson reads from his new book Maud and other poems at a social gathering in the home of Robert and Elizabeth Browning in London; Dante Gabriel Rossetti makes a sketch of him doing so
 * Belarusian writer Vintsent Dunin-Martsinkyevich publishes «Гапон» (Hapon) in the Russian Empire, the first poem written wholly in modern Belarusian.

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 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, 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, self-published July 4; Whitman would make many revisions in succeeding editions

Other

 * Ricardo Palma, Poesías ("Poems"); Peru
 * 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), English novelist
 * May 21 – Emile Verhaeren (died 1916), Belgian French
 * August 3 – Henry Cuyler Bunner (died 1896), American
 * September 12 – William Sharp (died 1905), Scottish poet writing as "Fiona Macleod"
 * December 15 – Maurice Bouchor (died 1929), French
 * December 28 – Juan Zorrilla de San Martín (died 1931), Uruguayan
 * Date not known:
 * Devendranath Sen (died 1920), Indian, Bengali-language poet
 * Govardhanram N. Tripathi (died 1907), Indian, Gujarati-language novelist and poet
 * Alexander Young, Scottish

Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * January 3 – János Majláth (born 1786), Hungarian
 * January 10 – Mary Russell Mitford (born 1787), English writer
 * January 25 – Dorothy Wordsworth (born 1771), English diarist and companion to her poet brother William
 * January 26 – Gérard de Nerval (born 1808), French
 * March 31 – Charlotte Brontë (born 1816), English novelist and poet
 * April 6 – Robert Davidson (born 1778), Scottish peasant poet
 * June 29 – Delphine de Girardin (born 1804), French writer
 * July 6 – Andrew Crosse (born 1784), English 'gentleman scientist' and poet
 * November 26 – Adam Mickiewicz (born 1798), Polish Romantic, dies in Istanbul while organizing Polish and Jewish volunteers to fight against Russia in the Crimean War
 * December 3 – Robert Montgomery (born 1807), English
 * December 18 – Samuel Rogers (born 1763), English
 * Date not known
 * Mahmud Gami (born 1765), Indian, Kashmiri
 * Sunthorn Phu (born 1786), Thai