1559 in poetry

• The Catholic Church creates the first Index Librorum Prohibitorum, ("Index of Prohibited Books"). Included on the list is Pier Angelo Manzolli's Zodiacus Vitae a poem first published probably in the early 1530s.[1]

• Joachim du Bellay, Discours au Roi et Le Poète courtisan satire, France
• Antonio Minturno, De poeta ("On Poetry"), Italian criticism (generally thought to be a source of Sir Philip Sidney's Defense of Poesie 1595)[2]
• Jorge de Montemayor, La Diana, pastoral romance, Portuguese[3]
• Marguerite de Navarre, Heptaméron, poems and stories in the manner of Boccaccio's Decameron; posthumously published, France[4]
• Olivier de Magny, Les Odes d'Olivier de Magny, de Cahors en Quercy, A. Wechel

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

• December – Lupercio Leonardo de Argensola (died 1613), Spanish poet, playwright and chronicler, brother of poet Bartolome Leonardo de Argensola
• George Chapman (died 1634), English dramatist, translator, and poet

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

• Nicolas Denisot (born 1515), French Renaissance poet and painter
• Yang Shen (born 1488), Chinese poet
• Wen Zhengming (born 1470), Chinese poet, painter and calligrapher[2]

• Poetry
• 16th century in poetry
• 16th century in literature
• Dutch Renaissance and Golden Age literature
• Elizabethan literature
• French Renaissance literature
• Renaissance literature
• Spanish Renaissance literature