1887 in poetry

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

British Australia

 * Henry Lawson, "A Song for the Republic", English, the author's first published poem, in The Bulletin, October 1 issue; Australia

British India

 * Narsinhrao Divetia, Kusumamala, Gujarati, his first collection of poems, "considered a definite advance in modern Gujarati poetry because of its novel use of poetic diction", according to A handbook of Indian Literature
 * Kandukuri Veeresalingam, Narada Samvadam, Telugu long poem condemning banal, rule-minded poetry

Canada

 * George Frederick Cameron, Lyrics on Freedom, Love and Death, English, posthumously published (by his brother).
 * Louis-Honoré Fréchette, La légende d'un peuple, French, the author's best-known work, about episodes of Canadian history; French Canadian author published in Paris
 * Sarah Anne Curzon, Laura Secord, the Heroine of 1812: A Drama, and Other Poems, English.
 * Susie Frances ed. The Canadian Birthday Book, English, poetry anthology. (Toronto: Robinson).
 * William Douw Lighthall, Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure, English. ("Witness" Printing House).
 * Thomas O'Hagan, A Gate of birginas, English.

France

 * François Coppée, Arriere-saison; French
 * Stéphane Mallarmé; all in French:
 * Poésies ("Poetical Works"), in a deluxe, limited edition published in October
 * Album de vers et de prose ("Selected Verse and Prose"), published in December

Ireland

 * William Butler Yeats, editor, Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland, English, an anthology, Dublin, Ireland

United Kingdom

 * William Allingham, Rhymes for Young Folk, English.
 * Robert Browning, Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in their Day, English.
 * Richard Le Gallienne, My Lady's Sonnets
 * George Meredith, Ballads and Poems of Tragic Life, English.
 * Constance Naden, A modern apostle; The elixir of life; The story of Clarice, and other poems, English.
 * Robert Louis Stevenson, Underwoods, English.
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, The Jubilee, English.
 * Katharine Tynan, Shamrocks, English, published in the United Kingdom by an Irish poet.

United States

 * Charles Follen Adams, Dialect Ballads, English
 * Amos Bronson Alcott, New Connecticut, English
 * Arlo Bates, Sonnets in Shadow, English
 * Palmer Cox, The Brownies: Their Book, English, children's fictional poetry
 * Emma Lazarus, By The Waters of Babylon, English
 * Jessie Wilson Manning, The passion of life, English
 * Lizette Woodworth Reese, A Branch of May, English
 * James Whitcomb Riley, Afterwhiles, English

Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * January 10 – Robinson Jeffers (died 1962), American poet and playwright
 * February 3 – Georg Trakl (suicide 1914), German
 * February 11 – Shinobu Orikuchi 折口 信夫, also known as Chōkū Shaku 釋 迢空 (died 1953), Japanese ethnologist, linguist, folklorist, novelist and poet; a disciple of Kunio Yanagita, he establishes an academic field named "Orikuchiism" (折口学), a mix of Japanese folklore, Japanese classics and Shintō religion (surname: Orikuchi)
 * March 9 – Ion Buzdugan, born Ivan Alexandrovici Buzdâga (died 1967), Bessarabian-Romanian poet, folklorist and politician
 * May 10 – J. C. Bloem (died 1966), Dutch
 * May 13 – Nagata Mikihiko 長田幹彦 (died 1964), Shōwa period poet, playwright and screenwriter (surname: Nagata)
 * May 15 – Edwin Muir (died 1959), Scottish poet, novelist and translator
 * May 16 – Jakob van Hoddis (died 1942), German
 * May 31 - Saint-John Perse (died 1975), French diplomat, poet and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1960
 * June 20 – Kurt Schwitters (died 1947), German
 * June 22 – Sir Julian Sorell Huxley (died 1975), English evolutionary biologist, humanist and internationalist
 * June 28 – Orrick Glenday Johns (died 1946), American poet
 * August 3 – Rupert Brooke (died on active service off Skyros, 1915), English poet
 * August 19 – Francis Ledwidge (killed in action near Ypres in Belgium, 1917), Irish poet, "poet of the blackbirds"
 * September 1 – Blaise Cendrars, pen name of Frédéric Louis Sauser (died 1961), Swiss novelist and poet naturalized as a French citizen in 1916
 * September 7 – Edith Sitwell (died 1964), English poet and critic
 * September 21 – Sir Thomas Herbert Parry-Williams (died 1975), Welsh poet, translator and academic
 * September 16 – Hans Arp (died 1966), German
 * September 27 – Frederick Macartney (died 1980), Australian
 * October 11 – Pierre Jean Jouve (died 1976), French poet and novelist
 * October 30 – Georg Heym (drowned 1912), German poet
 * November 15 – Marianne Moore (died 1972), American Modernist poet and writer
 * December 6 – Minakami Takitarō 水上滝太郎 pen name of Abe Shōzō (died 1940), Japanese, Shōwa period poet, novelist, literary critic and essayist (surname: Minakami)
 * December 8 – Elizabeth Daryush (died 1977), English poet, daughter of Robert Bridges
 * December 27 – Edward Andrade (died 1971), English physicist and poet.
 * December 30 – K.M. Munshi (died 1971), Indian Gujarati-language novelist, playwright, writer, politician and lawyer
 * Also:
 * Skipwith Cannell (died 1957), American poet associated with the Imagist group (pronounce his last name with the stress on the second syllable)
 * Margaret Curran (died 1962), Australian poet, editor and journalist
 * Alphonse Métérié (died 1967), French newspaper editor, teacher and poet
 * Ramnarayan V. Pathak (died 1955), Indian, Gujarati-language poet and husband of Heera Pathak
 * Sukumar Ray (সুকুমার রায়) (died 1923), Indian, Gujarati-language humorous poet, short-story writer and playwright
 * Jatindranath Sengupta (died 1954), Indian, Gujarati-language poet and writer

Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * February 27 – Edward Rowland Sill, American
 * July 15 – Adrien Rouquette (born 1813), American poet and missionary
 * October 12 – Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, born Dinah Maria Mulock, also referred to as Miss Mulock or Mrs. Craik (born 1826), English novelist and poet
 * November 19 – Emma Lazarus (born 1849), American poet who wrote the sonnet "The New Colossus", associated with the Statue of Liberty, where it is engraved on a plaque
 * date not known – Isabella Valancy Crawford (born 1850), Canadian, from heart failure