1895 in poetry

Events

Oscar Wilde's arrest and conviction

• February 18 - John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry, leaves his calling card at the Albemarle Club in London, inscribed: "For Oscar Wilde, posing somdomite", i.e. a sodomite, inducing Wilde to charge him with criminal libel.
• April 3-5 - Libel case of Wilde v Queensberry at the Old Bailey in London: Queensberry is acquitted. Evidence of Wilde's homosexual relationships with young men renders him liable to criminal prosecution under the Labouchere Amendment, while the Libel Act 1843 renders him legally liable for the considerable expenses Queensberry has incurred in his defence, leaving Wilde penniless.
• April 6 - Wilde is arrested at the Cadogan Hotel, London, for "unlawfully committing acts of gross indecency with certain male persons" and detained on remand in Holloway Prison.
• May 25 - Criminal case of Regina v. Wilde: After a retrial at the Old Bailey, Wilde is convicted of gross indecency and is taken to Pentonville Prison to begin his two years' sentence of hard labour.
• November 21 - Wilde is transferred to Reading Gaol.

  Other events

• December 19 - Robert Frost marries Elinor Miriam White at Lawrence, Massachusetts.
• Rudyard Kipling writes the poem If—.
• Ernest Thayer recites Casey at the Bat at a Harvard class reunion, resolving the "mystery" of the poem's authorship.

  Works published in English

Canada">Canadian poetry">Canada

• Bliss Carman, A Seamark: A Threnody for Robert Louis Stevenson. Boston: Copeland & Day.
• Bliss Carman, Behind The Arras: A Book Of The Unseen. Illus. Tom B. Meteyard. Boston: Lamson, Wolffe.
• Sophia Almon Hensley, A Woman's Love Letters.
• Emily Pauline Johnson, The White Wampum, Toronto: Copp Clark; London: John Lane.
• Marie Joussaye, Songs that Quinte Sang.
• Archibald Lampman, Lyrics of Earth
• Arthur Stringer, Pauline and Other Poems.
• Agnes Ethelwyn Wetherald, The House of the Trees and Other Poems

  United Kingdom">English poetry">United Kingdom

• Robert Bridges, Invocation to Music
• Gelett Burgess, "The Purple Cow"
• John Davidson, Fleet Street Eclogues, second series
• Austin Dobson, The Story of Rosina, and Other Verses
• Maurice Hewlett, A Masque of Dead Florentines
• Lionel Johnson, Poems
• William Morris, The Tale of Beowulf
• Coventry Patmore, The Rod, the Root, and the Flower
• Arthur Quiller-Couch, editor, The Golden Pomp, anthology of 16th- and 17th-century English lyricists
• Arthur Symons, London Nights
• James Thomson, Poetical Works, posthumously published; edited, with a memoir, by Bertram Dobell
• William Watson, The Father of the Forest, and Other Poems
• William Butler Yeats, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom:
• * Editor, A Book of Irish Verse, anthology
• * Poems, drama and poetry

  United States">American poetry">United States

• Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Unguarded Gates
• Katharine Lee Bates, "Pikes Peak" a poem later set to music and becoming known as "America the Beautiful", originally published in the July 4 edition of The Congregationalist, a church periodical
• Orelia Key Bell, Poems
• Ina Coolbrith, Songs from the Golden Gate
• Stephen Crane, The Black Riders and Other Lines
• Paul Laurence Dunbar, Majors and Minors
• William Dean Howells, Stops of Various Quills
• James Russell Lowell, Last Poems, published posthumously
• Henry David Thoreau, Poems of Nature, published posthumously
• James Whitcomb Riley, "Little Orphant Annie"

  Other in English

• Sri Aurobindo, Song to Myrtilla, Calcutta: Arya Publishing House; India, Indian poetry in English
• Banjo Paterson, The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses, major single-author collection of Australian bush poetry
• William Butler Yeats, Irish poet published in the United Kingdom:
• * Editor, A Book of Irish Verse, anthology
• * Poems, drama and poetry

  Works published in other languages

• José Santos Chocano, Peru:
• * En la aldea
• * Iras santas
• Francis Jammes, Un jour, France
• Catulle Mendès, La Grive des vignes, France
• Władysław Mickiewicz, Vie d'Adam Mickiewicz, four volumes, Poznań, Poland, published beginning 1890 through this year; published by the poet's son
• K. C. Kesava Pillai, Asanna-Marana Chinta Satakam, lyric in the form of a monologue of a man about to die, Indian, Malayalam-language
• Émile Verhaeren, Les villes tentaculaires, Belgium, French language
• Verner von Heidenstam, Dikter, Sweden
• Manilal Dwivedi, Atmanimajjan, a collection of Gujarati language poems.

  Awards and honors

Births

• February 18 - Lazarus Aaronson, English poet and academic economist
• April 18 - W. E. Harney, Australian
• May 2 - Lorenz Hart, American lyricist
• May 19 - Charles Hamilton Sorley, Scots poet
• May 28 - Gamel Woolsey, born Elizabeth Gammell Woolsey, American poet and writer
• June 3 - Robert Hillyer, American poet and academic
• July 22 - León de Greiff, Colombian poet
• July 24 - Robert Graves, English poet, translator and novelist
• September 10 - Viswanatha Satyanarayana, Indian poet writing in Telugu; popularly known as the Kavi Samraat
• September 22 - Babette Deutsch, American poet, critic, translator and novelist
• September 28 - Edward Harrington, Australian poet, writer of Bush ballads
• November 1 - David Jones, born Walter David Michael Jones, English artist and poet
• November 25 - Helen Hooven Santmyer, American poet and author
• December 14 - Paul Éluard, French poet, a founder of Surrealism
• December 23 - Lilian Bowes Lyon, English poet, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother
• Unknown dates
• * Padmadhar Chaliha, Indian, Assamese-language poet
• * Max Dunn, Irish-born Australian
• * Khavirakpan, Indian, Meitei language poet

  Deaths

• April 17 - Jorge Isaacs, Colombian writer, politician and explorer
• May 30 - Frederick Locker-Lampson, English writer and poet
• June 29 - Thomas Henry Huxley, English controversialist, academic, scientist and occasional poet
• October 7 - William Wetmore Story, American sculptor, art critic, poet and editor
• October 12 - Cecil Frances Alexander, Irish hymn-writer and poet
• October 21 - Louisa Anne Meredith, Australian
• November 4 - Eugene Field, American writer best known for children's poetry and humorous essays
• November 22 - John Warren, 3rd Baron de Tabley, English
• November 28 - Louisa Sarah Bevington, English poet and anarchist