1883 in poetry

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

United Kingdom

 * William Allingham, The Fairies, including "Up the airy mountain ..."; reprinted from Poems 1850
 * Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, The Wind and the Whirlwind
 * Robert Bridges, Prometheus the Firegiver
 * Robert Browning, Jocoseria
 * George Meredith, Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, A Century of Roundels

United States

 * Francis James Child, editor, English and Scottish Popular Ballads, an anthology published in five volumes from this year to 1898
 * Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Decorative Plaques
 * Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus", written in aid of the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund for erection of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Michael Angelo, posthumously published
 * James Whitcomb Riley, The Old Swimmin'-Hole and 'Leven More Poems
 * John Greenleaf Whittier, The Bay of Seven Islands
 * Jones Very, Poems, published posthumously
 * Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Poems of Passion

Works published in other languages

 * Gabriele D'Annunzio, L'intermezzo di rime, Italy
 * Mihail Eminescu, Luceafărul, Romania
 * Victor Hugo, La Légende des siècles, third series (first series 1859, second series 1877), France
 * Jan Neruda, Prosté motivy, Czechia
 * Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, History of the Russian State from Gostomysl to Timashev, Russian parody published posthumously
 * Paul Verlaine, in November publishes an influential essay on Stéphane Mallarmé, which is later reprinted in the book Les Poetès maudits; France
 * Albert Verwey, Persephone, Netherlands

Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * January 1 – Charles Badger Clark (died 1957), American
 * January 6 – Khalil Gibran (died 1931), Lebanese American poet and artist
 * January 21 – Olav Aukrust (died 1929), Norwegian poet and teacher
 * February 7 – K. V. Simon, (died 1944), Indian Malayalam-language poet
 * February 18
 * Nikos Kazantzakis (died 1957), Greek author
 * Jessie Litchfield, (died 1956), Australian author
 * March 13 – Kōtarō Takamura 高村 光太郎 (died 1956), Japanese poet and sculptor; son of sculptor Kōun Takamura
 * March 9 – Umberto Saba né Poli (died 1957), Italian poet and fiction writer
 * March 16 – Ethel Anderson née Campbell (died 1958), English-born Australian
 * March 27 (March 15 O.S.) – Marie Under (died 1980), Estonian
 * May 7 – Anna Wickham, née Edith Alice Mary Harper, aka Edith Hepburn and John Oland (committed suicide 1947), English poet brought up in Australia
 * June 27 – Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy (died 1929), English Anglican priest and poet
 * August 11 – Ernst Stadler (killed 1914 in World War I), German Expressionist poet
 * September 16 – T. E. Hulme (killed 1917 in World War I), influential English poetry critic
 * September 17 – William Carlos Williams (died 1963), American
 * November 10 – Arthur Davison Ficke (died 1945), American
 * December 10 – Alfred Kreymborg (died 1966), American poet, novelist, playwright, literary editor and anthologist
 * December 12 – William Baylebridge (died 1942)), Australian poet and short-story writer
 * September 14 – Marjorie Pickthall (died 1922), English-born Canadian

Deaths
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * January 5 – Charles Tompson (born 1806), Australian public servant said to be the first published Australian-born poet
 * May 23 – Cyprian Norwid, 61 (born 1821), Polish-born
 * June 14
 * Charles Timothy Brooks, 96, American poet and translator
 * Edward Fitzgerald, 74, English poet and translator, best known for his translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
 * After 1883 – George Moses Horton (born c. 1797), African-American