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Created by Stacy Kitsis, Arlington High School Librarian. Last updated: May 2, 2014.
Note: Download the Explain Everything and Creative Commons mini lesson for future reference here.
Poetry and Biography Resources
Poetry and Biography Resources
Poetry Websites
The Poetry Foundation is committed to "a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture." Search by author (name, school or period, region, or birthdate), or browse by subject. Includes biographies of major poets, some of them very detailed.
Sponsored by the Academy of American Poets, with the mission "to support American poets at all stages of their careers and to foster the appreciation of contemporary poetry." Advanced search options include keyword, movement, theme, and form. Includes brief biographies, focus on American poets.
Several public-domain poetry anthologies and collections, including The Oxford Book of English Verse, Modern American Poetry, and more. Search all of Bartleby or just the verse collection. Useful for historic poetry.
The first and largest online library of free e-books. These books are free because their copyright has expired, so they will be most useful for historic poetry.
Selected poems read aloud through the Favorite Poem Project.
Research Databases
Literature Resource Center (Gale)
Original works as well as biographical information, overviews, full-text literary criticism, and reviews on more than 130,000 writers across space and time. Looking for poetry? Use the Advanced Search feature to limit your results to poems.
Biography in Context (Gale)
After you have chosen your poet, use this comprehensive biography database to learn more about his or her life and times. Our history databases also offer helpful contextual information.
Books
Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry
Searching Smarter
Use the advanced search features in databases and specialized websites. One extra click upfront can save hours sifting through results. A simple but powerful search feature that is often available in academic databases is "article type." Many specialized literature websites allow users to search by period, theme, form, and more.
Use the advanced search features in Google. Site specific searches are a great way home in quickly on high quality results, such as academic websites. For example:
site:edu or site:poets.org
Check your spelling. If you get zero results, sloppy spelling is often to blame; this is especially common with proper names.
Get thee to a library. Chances are you will walk right past the Robbins Library at some point this week. Use the online catalog for a quick targeted search, or just pop in to browse the print collection. Head to 811 for American poetry, 821 for English poetry, or 808.81 for poetry collections.
Citing Sources & Academic Integrity
You'll want to cite the sources of your poetry, any critical works you use to analyze it, and any images or sound used in your multimedia project that you did not create yourself.
Popular and easy to use online citation generator.
Research and Documentation Online (Bedford/St. Martin's)
Detailed explanation of in-text citations and works cited entries in perfect MLA format for a wide variety of sources.
Sources for copyright-friendly media, including sound:
Words, Words, Words
Look up poems by title, author, first line, last line, or subject. This is an index: it does not contain the actual poems, but will tell you which anthologies do. Find it at REF 808.81 G.
We have other books! About poetry!
They have books too!
Critical Tools
Critical Tools
This site from Bedford/St. Martin’s reviews the literary elements most common to poetry.
This site from Brigham Young University has more rhetorical terminology than you can shake a stick at.
Academic OneFile (Gale)
Our best source of academic journal articles, which may be useful for in-depth literary criticism. Just remember to cite all ideas that you find, even if you put them in your own words. You may also find additional poems (e.g., works published in The New Yorker) through this database.
Scholarly journals from JSTOR (available through the Boston Public Library) are an excellent source for literary criticism.
Image via Creative Commons license from MinimalistPhotography101.com.
Questions, comments, concerns? Email me at skitsis@arlington.k12.ma.us.
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