1871 in poetry

Years in poetry:	1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874
Years in literature:	1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874
Decades in poetry:	1840s 1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s
Centuries in poetry:	18th century 19th century 20th century
Centuries:	18th century · 19th century · 20th century
Decades:	1840s 1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s
Years:	1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874

[edit] Events

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, including "Jabberwocky"
Edward Lear, Nonsense Songs, including "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat"
Thomas Maitland (i.e., Robert Williams Buchanan) attacks Dante Gabriel Rossetti in "The Fleshly School of Poetry" in Contemporary Review (October); and Rossetti replies in "The Stealthy School of Criticism" in Athenaeum (December)
Joaquin Miller, Songs of the Sierras
Algernon Charles Swinburne, Songs before Sunrise
Alfred Lord Tennyson, "The Last Tournament"
Walt Whitman, Passage to India

April 16 — John Millington Synge (died 1909), Irish dramatist, poet, prose writer, collector of folklore and a key figure in the Irish Literary Revival and a co-founder of the Abbey Theatre
June 17 — James Weldon Johnson (died 1938), African-American author, poet, early civil rights activist, and prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance
October 30 — Paul Valéry (died 1945), French philosopher, author and Symbolist poet whos also wrote essays and aphorisms on art, history, letters, music and current events
November 1 — Stephen Crane (died 1900), American novelist, poet and journalist
date not known:
- William Henry Davies (died 1940), Welsh-born poet and writer who spent most of his life as a tramp in the United States and United Kingdom, but became known as one of the most popular poets of his time
- Ralph Edwin Hodgson
- Francis Joseph Sherman (Canada)