Guide to Locating Poems and Poetry Criticism

Sources of Poems

WebCat:

The poetry of individual poets can be found by completing an author search in the Osterlin Library WebCat using the name of the poet (e.g. Dickinson, Emily). For collections or anthologies of poetry, do a keyword search using the term poetry or phrase poetry collections. ·

Poetry Indexes:

The following sources are useful for locating poems that have been published in collections, anthologies, or online:

• Best American Poetry. New York: Scribner, 1988-
  REF PS 580.B478
  This series, with volumes since 1988, reprints 75 poems annually which are selected from literary magazines.
• The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry in Anthologies 11th ed. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1997.
  REF PN 1022.H39 1997
  Indexes poems in anthologies that are "likely to be found on library shelves." Includes a title, first line, and last line index as well as author and subject indexes. Newer editions do not supersede earlier ones that are shelved with this edition in the Reference Collection.
• Academy of American Poets
  http://www.poets.org/
  One of the liveliest and most comprehensive poetry sites on the Internet
• American Verse Project
  http://www.hti.umich.edu/a/amverse/
  Full text poems from hundreds of volumes of American poetry prior to 1920.
• Bartleby.com
  http://www.bartleby.com/verse/
  With thousands of poems by hundreds of authors, Bartleby.com offers one of the largest free collections of verse on the web."
• Representative Poetry Online
  http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/display/index.cfm
  Includes about 2,900 English poems by over 400 poets from Caedmon, in the Old English period, to the work of living poets today.

Poetry Definitions and Criticism

The following books in the Osterlin Library are examples of the many volumes that are useful when studying or analyzing poetry:

Reference Books

• Columbia History of American Poetry. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
  REF PS 303.C64 1993
  Examines the poetic tradition across the entire span of American poetry.
• Guide to American Poetry Explication Boston: G.K. Hall, 1989.
  REF Z 1231.P7 G85 1989
  Two volumes of citations to explications (i.e. explanations or interpretations). The entries have been marked to facilitate locating the sources cited which are available at Osterlin Library.
• Guide to British Poetry Explication. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1991.
  REF Z 2014.P7 M34 1991
  Three volumes covering Old English through the modern.
• Poetry Explication; A Checklist of Interpretation of British and American Poems Past and Present. 3rd ed. Denver: G. K. Hall, c1980.
  REF Z 2014.P7 K8 1980
  An index to interpretation of individual poems found in selected journals and books from 1925 through 1977. The volume has been marked to facilitate research at Osterlin Library.
• The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1993.
  REF PN 1021.N39 1993
• Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
  REF PR 601.O9 1994
  Comprehensive work about poets, movements, concepts and critical terms.
• Patterns of Poetry; An Encyclopedia of Forms. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1986.
  REF PN1042 .W514 1986
  Describes the forms used by poets throughout the history of English.

  Circulating Books

• A Book of Forms; A Handbook of Poetics. New York: Dutton, 1968.
  PN1042.T78 1968
  Illustrates the structure and language of poetry and poetry composition.
• Elements of Poetry. New York: Macmillan, 1955.
  PN 1042.K7
  Each chapter is devoted to the explanation of a specific element of poetry and presents poems or passages from poems that illustrate that element.
• An Introduction to Poetry. 4th ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 1978.
  PN 1042.K39 1978
  Provides clear explanations of terms and traditions and excellent, provocative examples.
• Poetry Handbook: A Dictionary of Terms. 3rd ed. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1969.
  PN 44.5.D4 1969
  An alphabetical list of definitions with numerous examples from the work of famous poets.
• Sound and Sense; An Introduction to Poetry San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987.
  PN 1042.P4 1987
  An introduction and exploration of poetic form and structure.
• Western Wind; An Introduction to Poetry 2nd ed. New York: Random House, 1983.
  PN 1042.N6 1983
  Uses examples rather than simply definitions, and provides an outstanding collection of classic and contemporary poems.

  Online Databases

  The following online databases are useful for critical and background information on poetry and contemporary poets:

• Contemporary Literary Criticism
  Accessible via the Comprehensive Database List on the Osterlin Library's Web page.
  Contemporary Literary Criticism--Select is an extensive collection of critical essays on contemporary authors. Each CLC--Select entry contains a biographical/critical introduction, listing of principal works and sources for further study
• JSTOR
  Accessible via the Comprehensive Database List on the Osterlin Library's Web page.
  A searchable full-text archive of scholarly journals, including eleven in the area of literature.
  
• WilsonSelect
  Accessible via the Comprehensive Database List on the Osterlin Library's Web page. Available for off-campus use. Obtain password at the service desk.
  A general-interest database with full text articles from 1994 to the present.
• EBSCOhost Academic Search Elite
  Accessible via the Comprehensive Database List on the Osterlin Library's Web page.
  Academic Search Elite provides full text for more than 1,850 publications, including nearly 1,300 peer-reviewed journals.
• Infotrac General Reference Center Gold
  Accessible via the Comprehensive Database List on the Osterlin Library's Web page.
  A general interest database with full-text articles from 1980 to the present.

Biographical and Background Information

Webcat

A subject search of the Osterlin Library online book catalog (WebCat) using the names of individual poets will locate additional biographical and critical writing about those authors.

The following books in the Osterlin Library are useful for locating information about authors and their work:

Reference Books

• Encyclopedia of American Poetry. The Twentieth Century Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001
  REF PS323.5 .E53 2001
  Treats a broad range of individual poets and poems, along with many articles devoted to discrete topics, schools, or periods of American verse in the century.
• Encyclopedia of American Literature. New York: Continuum, 1999.
  REF PS21 .E53 1999
  A comprehensive survey of literature from colonial times to the present with an emphasis on biographical information.
• Oxford Companion to African American Literature. New York: Oxford University Press,1997.
  REF PS153 .N5 O96 1997
  Comprehensive one-volume work, surveying black literary history, focusing in particular on the lives and careers of more than 400 writers.
• World Poets. New York: Charles Scriber's Sons, c2000.
  REF PN1021 .W67 2000
  This 3 volume encyclopedia contains more than 100 essays on the most studied poets and genres.

  Online Databases

• Contemporary Authors
  Accessible via the Comprehensive Database List on the library's Web page.
  A full-text database that provides complete biographical and bibliographical information and references on more than 120,000 U.S. and international authors.
• Twayne Authors Series
  Accessible via the Comprehensive Database List on the library's Web page.
  A full-text database that provides critical introductions to the lives and works of writers as well as the history and influence of literary movements and the development of literary genres.

l.m. 9/2003