1888 in poetry

Events

• June 3 – American writer Ernest Thayer's baseball poem "Casey at the Bat" is first published as the last of his humorous contributions to The San Francisco Examiner.

  Works published

Canada">Canadian poetry">Canada

• William Wilfred Campbell, Snowflakes and sunbeams. St. Stephen, NB: St. Croix Courier Press. Published at author's expense.
• Archibald Lampman, Among the Millet. His first book of poems, including "Heat". Published at author's expense.
• Frederick George Scott, The Soul's Quest, and Other Poems.

  United Kingdom">English poetry">United Kingdom

• William Allingham, Flower Pieces, and Other Poems, illustrated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
• Sir Edwin Arnold, translator from the Persian by Sa'di, With Sa'di in the Garden; or, The Book of Love
• Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, Second Series
• W. E. Henley, A Book of Verses
• Andrew Lang, Grass of Parnassus
• George Meredith, A Reading of Earth
• William Wordsworth, The Recluse, printed from the original manuscript; Wordsworth's plan was to write a long autobiographical poem of three parts and a prelude posthumously published

  United States">American poetry">United States

• Oliver Wendell Holmes, Before the Curfew and Other Poems
• James Russell Lowell:
• * The English Poets; Lessing, Rousseau, nonfiction
• * Heartsease and Rue
• Herman Melville, John Marr and Other Sailors
• Thomas Nelson Page and A. C. Gordon, Befo' de War
• James Whitcomb Riley:
• * Pipes o' Pan at Zekesbury
• * Old-Fashioned Roses
• Ernest Thayer, "Casey at the Bat"
• Walt Whitman, November Boughs

  Other

• Rubén Darío, Azul
• James Russell Lowell, Heartsease and Rue
• Władysław Mickiewicz, Adam Mickiewicz, sa vie et son œuvre, biography written by and collected works edited by the author's son, translated from the original Polish into French, Paris
• I. L. Peretz, "Monish", Polish poet writing in Yiddish
• Andrejs Pumpurs, Lāčplēsis, Latvia

  Awards and honors

Births

• February 8 – Giuseppe Ungaretti, Egyptian-born Italian modernist poet and writer
• February 13 – Desmond FitzGerald, English-born Irish revolutionary, poet, publicist and politician
• March 26 – F. W. Harvey, English rural poet and soldier
• March 30 – Julian Grenfell, English soldier and poet
• April 6 – Dan Andersson, Swedish poet
• April 30 – John Crowe Ransom, American poet, essayist, social and political theorist and academic
• June 8 – Senge Motomaro 千家元麿, Japanese, Taishō and Shōwa period poet
• June 13 – Fernando Pessoa, Portuguese heteronymic poet, writer, critic, translator, publisher and philosopher
• June 22 – Alan Seeger, American poet
• August 1 – Aline Kilmer, born Aline Murray, American poet, children's book author and essayist; wife of Joyce Kilmer
• September 26 – T. S. Eliot, American-born English poet, playwright, editor, critic and writer
• October 1 – Ryuko Kawaji 川路柳虹, pen-name of Kawaki Makoto, Japanese, Shōwa period poet and literary critic
• October 14 – Katherine Mansfield, New Zealand poet
• October 16 – Eugene O'Neill, American playwright
• October 19 – Venkatarama Ramalingam Pillai, Indian Tamil-language poet and freedom fighter
• date not known – Nilkanth Sharma Dal, Indian, Kashmiri-language poet

  Deaths

• February 28 - Black Bart, American gentleman stagecoach robber and versifier
• April 15 - Matthew Arnold, English poet and critic
• May 12 - Edward Lear, English comic poet
• July 30 - María Josefa Mujía, blind Bolivian poet
• August 9 - Charles Cros, French poet and inventor