1865 in poetry

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

United Kingdom

 * Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, First Series, including "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time"
 * Robert Browning, Poetical Works: Fourth Edition
 * Robert Williams Buchanan, "The Session of the Poets," an attack on Algernon Charles Swinburne, published in The Spectator
 * Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, children's novel, including the prefatory poem "All in the golden afternoon..." and a number of nonsense verses
 * Arthur Hugh Clough, Letters and Remains of Arthur Hugh Clough, including Dipsychus (see also Poems and Prose 1869), posthumously published
 * Samuel Ferguson, Lays of the Western Gael
 * Mary Wright Sewell, Mother's Last Words: a ballad
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne:
 * Atalanta in Calydon
 * Chastelard

United States

 * Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Poems
 * Fitz-Greene Halleck, Young America: A Poem
 * Oliver Wendell Holmes, Humorous Poems
 * George Moses Horton, Naked Genius; this year, Horton, a slave, gains his liberty, publishes the book in Raleigh, North Carolina, and moves to Philadelphia
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
 * Translator, The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, two volumes (Volume 2 in 1867)
 * Household Poems
 * James Russell Lowell, Ode Recited at the Commemoration of the Living and Dead Soldiers of Harvard University
 * John Godfrey Saxe, Clever Stories of Many Nations Rendered in Rhyme
 * Richard Henry Stoddard, Abraham Lincoln: An Horation Ode
 * Samuel Ward, Lyrical Recreations
 * Walt Whitman:
 * Drum-Taps, a collection of poems on the American Civil War, published in April
 * Sequel to Drum-Taps, a collection of 18 poems mourning the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, including "O Captain! My Captain!" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", published in Autumn

Other in English

 * Charles Harpur, The Tower of a Dream, verse pamphlet, Australia
 * Charles Heavysege, Jephthah's Daughter, Canada

Works published in other languages

 * Giosuè Carducci, "Inno a Satana", Italy
 * Victor Hugo, Les Chansons des rues et des bois, France
 * Pamphile Lemay, Essais poétiques; French language; Canada
 * Uilleam Mac Dhun Lèibhe (William Livingston), Duain agus Orain, collection, Scottish Gaelic poet published in Scotland
 * Sully Prudhomme, Stances et poèmes, France
 * Rimes et Poësies Jersiaises, Jersey

Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * March – Edward Dyson (died 1931), Australian
 * March 20 – Arthur Bayldon (died 1958), Australian
 * March 23 – Madison Cawein (died 1914), American
 * March 27 – Marion Angus (died 1946), Scots language poet
 * April 9 – Adela Florence Nicolson, née Cory ("Lawrence Hope"; died 1904), English
 * May 2 – William Gay (died 1897), Scottish-born Australian
 * May 5 – Helen Maud Merrill (died 1943), American
 * May 15 – Albert Verwey (died 1937), Dutch
 * May 20 – Henry Ernest Boote (died 1949), English-born Australian
 * June 13 – W. B. Yeats (died 1939), Irish poet and playwright
 * July 18 – Dowell O'Reilly (died 1923), Australian
 * July 21 (or 1868?) – Thomas William Hodgson Crosland (died 1924), English writer and poet
 * August 16 – Mary Gilmore (died 1962), Australian poet and journalist
 * September 12 – Sophus Claussen (died 1931), Danish
 * September 21 – Francis Kenna (died 1932), Australian
 * December 30
 * Rudyard Kipling (died 1936), Indian-born English novelist, writer and poet
 * Emily Julian McManus (died 1918), Canadian poet, author, and educator
 * Also:
 * Kunjikuttan Thampuran (died 1913), Indian, Malayalam-language poet
 * Samuel Williamson (died 1936), Australian

Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * May 1 – Isaac Williams (born 1802), English writer, poet and clergyman
 * June 10 – Mrs. Lydia Sigourney, the "Sweet Singer of Hartford" (born 1791), American poet and writer of conduct books
 * August 4 – William Edmondstoune Aytoun (born 1813), Scottish lawyer and poet
 * September 5 – Hannah Flagg Gould (born 1789), American poet
 * September 29 – Richard Lower (born 1782), English dialect poet
 * October 15 – Andrés Bello (born 1781), Venezuelan humanist, diplomat, poet, legislator, philosopher, educator and philologist
 * November 9 – George Arnold (born 1834), American writer, poet and artist