1885 in poetry

• Frederick James Furnivall founds the Shelley Society^[1]
• Henri Beauclair and Gabriel Vicaire, using the pseudonym Adoré Floupette, publish Les Déliquescences d'Adoré Floupette, a parodic collection of poems satirising French symbolism and the Decadent movement.

• Catulle Mendès, Soirs moroses, Contes épiques, Philoméla, etc; Poésies, in seven volumes; France^[8]

Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:

• January 6 – Humbert Wolfe (died 1940), English poet, writer and civil servant
• January 20 – Ozaki Hōsai 尾崎 放哉 pen name of Ozaki Hideo (died 1926), Japanese, late Meiji period and Taishō period poet
• January 25 – HakushÅ« Kitahara 北原 白秋, pen-name of Kitahara RyÅ«kichi 北原 隆吉 (died 1942), Japanese, Taishō and Shōwa period tanka poet
• April 21 – Mitsuko Shiga 四賀光子, pen-name of Mitsu Ota (died 1956), Japanese, Taishō and Shōwa period tanka poet, a woman
• April 26 – Dakotsu Iida 飯田 蛇笏, commonly referred to as "Dakotsu", pen names of Takeji Iida 飯田 武治 (died 1962), Japanese, haiku poet; trained under Takahama Kyoshi
• April 29 – Andrew Young (died 1971), Scottish-born poet and clergyman
• May 12 – Saneatsu Mushanokōji 武者小路 実篤 實篤, sometimes known as "Mushakōji Saneatsu"; other pen-names included "Musha" and "Futo-o" (died 1976), Japanese, late Taishō period and Shōwa period novelist, playwright, poet, artist and philosopher
• May 13 – Hideo Nagata 長田秀雄 (died 1949), Japanese, Shōwa period poet, playwright and screenwriter
• July 1 – Dorothea Mackellar (died 1968), Australian poet and fiction writer
• July 8 – Veikko Antero Koskenniemi (died 1962), Finnish poet
• July 20 – Herman Wildenvey, born Portaas (died 1959), Norwegian poet
• August 18 – Nettie Palmer (died 1964), Australian poet, essayist and Australia's leading literary critic; wife of Vance Palmer
• August 24 – Bokusui Wakayama, 若山 牧水 (died 1928), Japanese "Naturalist" tanka poet
• August 28 – Vance Palmer, (died 1959), Australian novelist, dramatist, essayist and critic; husband of Nettie Palmer
• September 3 – Ghulam AhmadMahjur (died 1952), Indian, Kashmiri-language poet^[9]
• September 11 – D. H. Lawrence (died 1930), English fiction writer, poet, playwright, essayist and literary critic
• October 30 – Ezra Pound (died 1972), American poet and editor
• November 9 (October 28 O.S.) – Velimir Khlebnikov (died 1922), Russian Futurist poet and writer
• November 28 – Gladys Cromwell (suicide 1919), American poet
• December 19 – F. S. Flint (died 1960), English poet, translator and prominent member of the Imagist group
• Also
  • Govindagraj, also known as "Ram Ganes" Gadkari (died 1919), Indian, Marathi-language poet, playwright and humorist^[9]
  • Ivan Zorman (died 1957), Slovene-born poet and composer

Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:

• January 10 – Amable Tastu (born 1795), French women of letters and poet
• May 22 – Victor Hugo (born 1802), French novelist and poet
• April 8 – Susanna Moodie (born 1803), Canadian poet
• April 30 – Jens Peter Jacobsen (born 1847), Danish novelist and poet^[10]
• May 29 – Alfred Meissner (born 1821?), Austrian poet
• July 15 – Rosalía de Castro (born 1837), Spanish Galician poet and writer
• August 11 – Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton (born 1809), English man of letters, poet and politician
• August 12 – Helen Hunt Jackson (born 1830), American writer, novelist and poet
• September 24 – George Frederick Cameron (born 1854 in poetry), Canadian poet and journalist

• 19th century in poetry
• 19th century in literature
• List of years in poetry
• List of years in literature
• Victorian literature
• French literature of the 19th century
• Symbolist poetry
• Poetry