Guides: English: Poetry

Poetry Resources Online

American Verse Project
Electronic archive of volumes of American poetry prior to 1920; a collaborative project between the University of Michigan Humanities Text Initiative (HTI) and the University of Michigan Press.
Shakespeare Quartos Archive
The Shakespeare Quartos Archive is a digital collection of pre-1642 editions of William Shakespeare's plays. Produced jointly by a group of U.S. and U.K. libraries and academic institutions.
Poets.org
Site of the Academy of American Poets.
Poet's Corner
Collection covering roughly 7,000 works by about 800 poets - including some of the best known works in the English language - plus many obscure and forgotten works that are well worth reading .
Poetry Archive
Contains readings by hundreds of poets, including a number of real historical gems from those who have passed away. The homepage contains links to a number of educational resources for teachers or for those looking for a brief introduction to reading poetry.
Poetry Foundation
The publisher of Poetry magazine, is an independent literary organization committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in culture. Includes poems, articles and biographical information on poets.
Digital Scriptorium
An image database of medieval and renaissance manuscripts that unites scattered resources from many institutions into an international tool for teaching and scholarly research. Presently viewable on the DS website are records for 5,300 manuscripts and for 24,300 images.
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The Digital Scriptorium is a growing image database of medieval and renaissance manuscripts that unites scattered resources from many institutions into an international tool for teaching and scholarly research.
As a visual catalog, DS allows scholars to verify with their own eyes cataloguing information about places and dates of origin, scripts, artists, and quality. Special emphasis is placed on the touchstone materials: manuscripts signed and dated by their scribes. DS records manuscripts that traditionally would have been unlikely candidates for reproduction. It fosters public viewing of materials otherwise available only within libraries. Because it is web-based, it encourages interaction between the knowledge of scholars and the holdings of libraries to build a reciprocal flow of information. Digital Scriptorium looks to the needs of a very diverse community of medievalists, classicists, musicologists, paleographers, diplomatists and art historians. At the same time Digital Scriptorium recognizes the limited resources of libraries; it bridges the gap between needs and resources by means of extensive rather than intensive cataloguing, often based on legacy data, and sample imaging.

Digital Scriptorium institutional partners have instituted a governance structure to plan jointly for the future of the program, in terms of scope, sustainability, and content.

Presently viewable on the DS website are records for 5,300 manuscripts and for 24,300 images.

Tiles on the Digital Scriptorium homepage and throughout the site are from Berkeley, University of California, Bancroft Library, UCB 059.
CAPA: Contemporary American Poetry Archive
CAPA is an electronic archive designed to make out-of-print volumes of poetry available to readers, scholars, and researchers. The books are stored as individual text-only files accessible on the Internet.
Modern American Poetry
An online journal and multimedia companion to Anthology of Modern American Poetry, edited by Cary Nelson. Includes scholarly commentary on 161 modern and contemporary American poets.
RPO: Representative Poetry Online
An online collection of British and American poetry from the Middle Ages to the present, from the University of Toronto.

Poetry in Periodicals

Readers' Guide Retrospective 1890-1982
Contains comprehensive indexing of the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States. Search for poetry by title or author's name. Current coverage for this database includes the years 1890 through 1982.
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Search by author or title to find individual poems published in some magazines and literary journals. Provides full text coverage of over 2,100 journals, including nearly 1,700 peer-reviewed titles in the social sciences, humanities, general science, multi-cultural studies, education and more.

Information about Poets

Contemporary poets, with a preface by Anthony Thwaite; editor, Thomas Riggs. 7th ed. New York : St. James Press, 2000.
Provides bibliographical information on more than 1,000 poets currently writing in the English language. Signed entries include biographical sketches, addresses, bibliographies of first editions, sound recordings, other publications, and lists of critical studies. Includes a title index.
Available in Gale Virtual Reference Library

Dictionary of literary biography Detroit, Mich : Gale Research Co, 1978-
Poets are also included in many volumes such as Victorian poets before 1850, Twentieth-century Spanish poets, American poets since World War II... The signed essays combine biographical and critical aspects with synopses of works and their bibliographical details, emphasizing in varying degrees the writer's historical importance and influence.
Included in the database: Literature Resource Center

Poetry criticism : excerpts from criticism of the works of the most significant and widely studied poets of world literature. Detroit, MI : Gale Research Inc., c1991-
Each author entry includes a biographical and critical introduction, a list of principal works, critical excerpts (arranged chronologically to emphasize critical reception), and a list of suggested readings. Excerpts are prefaced with an explanatory note to provide critical context. Each volume contains a cumulative author index, a cumulative nationality index for poets, and a cumulative title index of individual poems, book-length poems, and collection titles.
Selected content is available in Literature Resource Center

Print Indexes

Columbia Granger's index to poetry in anthologies. 13^thed., completely rev., indexing anthologies published through May 31, 2006, edited by Tessa Kale. New York, Columbia University Press, 2007.
A title and first-line index to 85,000 poems by 12,000 poets collected in approximately 400 anthologies. Last-line indexing is provided for 10,000 poems. Author and subject indexes are included. The first edition was published in 1904; each edition drops 150 anthologies and adds 150 new ones.
Payson Library (Ref. PN 1022 H39 2007)

Last lines : an index to the last lines of poetry, by Victoria Kline. 2 vols. New York : Facts on File, c1991.
Indexes the last lines of approximately 171,000 poems published in anthologies, 1900-1987, including the same 405 anthologies of Granger's 8th ed., 74 from Granger's6th ed., and 18 significant anthologies published 1985-87. Contents: v. 1. Last line index. Title index -- v. 2. Author index. Keyword index.
Payson Library (Ref. PN 1022 K55 1991)