Basic Resources for Research on Poetry
Librarian: Anne Barker

How to Find a Poem: Indexes of Poetry Publications

• LION: Literature Online provides online texts of many English and American literary works with a search mechanism to facilitate text analysis.
  From the main LION menu, choose Texts to search for words and phrases within a specific work or group of works. The advanced search feature allows you to define a corpus by period, literary movement, author's gender or ethnicity, and other criteria.
• ABELL: Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature 
  Limit to "literary works" to find poems published in the publications indexed by ABELL.
• Subject Index to Poetry (Ref. PN1021.B7)
• Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry in Anthologies (Ref. PN1022 .F73 1997)
• Granger's Index to Poetry (Ref. PN1022.H39, PN1022.G7)
• Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry in Collected and Selected Works (Ref. PN4784.W7 F58 1997)
  The main bibliography of poetry in English from all periods.  Indexes collections.  Check all editions for complete coverage.
• Last lines : an index to the last lines of poetry (Ref. PN1022 .K55 1991)
• Poetry Index Annual: A Title, Author, and Subject Index to Poetry in Anthologies. (Ref. PN1022.P63)
  1989-1992  Reputedly more inclusive than Granger's
• Chicorel Index to Poetry in Anthologies and Collections in Print (Ref. PN1022.C5 and Ref. PN1022. C54)
• American Poetry Index: An Author and Title Index  to Poetry by Americans in Single-Author Collections (Ref. PS323.5.A43)
• Roth's American Poetry Annual (Ref. PS580 .R68)
• Index of American Periodical Verse (Ref. Z1231.P7 I47)
  1971-1978  Indexes poems published in about 200 little magazines.
• Chicorel Index to Poetry in Collections in Print, on Discs and Tapes (Ref. Z7155 .C48)
• International Index to Recorded Poetry  (PN1022 .H63 1983)
• Women's Poetry Index (Ref. PN1024 .G89 1985)
• Index to Poetry by Black American Women  (Z1229.N39 C45 1986)
• Index to Black Poetry (Ref. PS153.N5 C45)
• Columbia Granger's Index to African-American Poetry (Ref. PS153.N5 C628 1999)
• A Bibliographical Catalogue and First-line Index of Printed Anthologies of English Poetry to 1640 (Ref. PR521 .B36 2002)
• First-line Index of English poetry, 1500-1800, in Manuscripts of the Bodleian Library, Oxford ( Z2014.P7 F5)
• Bibliography and Index of English Verse Printed 1476-1558 (SPEC Rare Ref. Z2014.P7 R56 1988)
  Index to Canadian Poetry in English ( Z1377.P7 M35 1984 )
• Index of Australian and New Zealand Poetry ( Z4024.P7 C8  )
• Hoffman's Index to poetry : European and Latin American Poetry in Anthologies  (Ref. PN1022 .H627 1985)
• Twentieth-century Poetry from Spanish America : an Index to Spanish Language and Bilingual Anthologies (Ref. PQ7082.P7 S66 1998)

Handbooks & Encyclopedias

• The Longman Dictionary and Handbook of Poetry (Ref. PN1021.M94 1985)
• The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (Ref. PN1021.N39 1993)
• The Princeton Handbook of Poetic Terms (Ref. PN1042. P75 1986) 
• The Handbook of Poetic Forms (Ref. PN1042.T43 2000)
  A variety of literary reference books are available in LION. Click on Criticism & Reference, and then on Reference.

Biographical Sources

• MERLIN Catalog Do a subject search on your person's name, putting last name first.  Scroll down the resulting list of subject headings to find biographies.
• LION: Literature Online  
  Click on " Authors" and type in your author's name, last name first. 
• Dictionary of Literary Biography Ref. PN451 .D43 
  Use the Literary Index or check the index in the last volume of this series to see which volume contains information on your author. The DLB also gives nice lists of the authors' works.
• Contemporary Authors Ref. Z1224 .C62 
  This covers more recent authors than the DLB. Use the Literary Index or check the index in the last volume of this series to see which volume contains information on your author. Entries in CA also list reviews and interviews.
• Critical Survey of Poetry (Ref. PN1111.C7)
• Who's Who in Twentieth-Century World Poetry (Ref. PN1271.W46 2000)
  The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English (Ref. PR601.O9 1994)
• Contemporary Poets (Ref. PR603.C6)
• Contemporary Women Poets (Ref. PS151.C67 1997)
• Encyclopedia of American Poetry: the Nineteenth Century (Ref. PS316.E63 1998)

Criticism

Finding criticism on a specific poem can be tricky since most catalogs and indexes are not this detailed.  The following specialized indexes identify criticism on specific poems. To find criticism using other databases or library catalogs, search the author's name as a subject and possibly general themes. You may not be able to tell if an article or book treats a specific poem until you have the publication in hand.

• Index to Criticisms of British and American Poetry (Ref. PR89.C5)
• American and British Poetry: A Guide to the Criticism (Ref. Z1231.P7 A44 1984)
• Guide to American Poetry Explications (Ref. Z1231.P7 G85 1989)
• Poetry Explication: A Checklist of Interpretation since 1925 (Ref. Z2014.P7 K8 1980)
• Guide to British Poetry Explication (Ref. Z2014.P7 M34 1991)
• The Literary Index indexes the print publication Poetry Criticism (Ref. PN1010 .P499), which excerpts criticism of poems published in a variety of sources.

This SOURCEPACK is a service of Ellis Library
Librarian/Webmaster: Anne Barker
Last updated: March 12, 2007