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Poems and Poetry

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poetry online, poetry texts, poets

Poetry

You can find “Leaves of Grass” without ever leaving the house, if you know where to look online. The Internet can be an excellent source for poetry texts, information about poets and even tips for penning your own poems. Modern technology can bring all the classics, and even current poetry news, to your screen in seconds.

Poems and Poetry

There are enough poems and poets to fill libraries, but you can also access them from your desktop, laptop and even from your mobile handheld device. With just a few keywords, you can find poems online. There are also many sites that recommend poetry so you can get quick doses of culture and literature whenever the urge strikes. Use the sites in this section to discover new poems and learn about the brains behind the works by researching poets.

Dulcinea's Insight

  • Individual schools and universities often have excellent poetry Web sites and text resources. Try a larger university Web site for an online library.
  • Many brick and mortar libraries have online databases as well. While you may not be able to read poetry online, you can try to find a book or poem that’s not included in one of the databases below.

Dulcinea's Picks

For reading poetry…
Poets.org , the Web site of the Academy of American Poets, offers a search box on the top left of the homepage that you can use to search for a poem, or you can find poems searching alphabetically by title, author or first line. Don’t miss out on the Poems for Every Occasion feature that allows you to find poetry suited to weddings, love, breakups, wars, summer, or revolution, just to name a few. You can even get mobile poetry, a database of more than 2,500 poems stored on your handheld device.
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Poet’s Corner is a one of largest resources for reading poetry texts online. There are several ways to search the library, including indexes by author, title, subject or daily favorites.
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For researching poets …
Poets.org , the Web site of the Academy of American Poets, has several ways to find a poet. Search by last name, explore various schools and movements, or look at a collection of groundbreaking books.
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The Poet Laureate Timeline provides short biographies of all the poet laureates from 1937 to present. You’ll also find information explaining the position of poet laureate and tips on writing poetry.
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The Poetry Links Library  lists links to the Web sites of “Poets of Renown” and contemporary poets.
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For listening to poetry …
PennSound creates new audio recordings of poets and preserves existing audio archives. On the Web site, part of the University of Pennsylvania Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing, you can keep up with news and listen to recordings.
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The Poetry Archive is devoted to reestablishing the oral tradition of poetry. The site collects recordings of poets reading their work and enables visitors to search alphabetically by poet or poem name. There are also resources tailored for teachers, students and children to explore poetry.
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To teach poetry …
Poetry 180 is a project headed up by former poet laureate Billy Collins. Collins selected a poem for each day of the 180-day school year with high school students in mind. Students can read the poems themselves or, as Collins recommends, read them out loud at school.
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For indexes of poetry and poets …
The Poetry Foundation publishes Poetry magazine and offers robust online resources for reading poems, learning about poets and staying in touch with the poetry community. The archive includes a poetry tool that makes researching poems easy, and the site is filled with articles about poetry and book recommendations. Don’t miss the Reading Guides to supplement your understanding of particular works.
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Representative Poetry Online is the University of Toronto Libraries’ poetry index and online archive. Not only can you search by poem or poet name, you can also search by first or last line of a poem, or even do a keyword search for words in a poem. You’ll also find readings and writings on the subject of poetry and an essential poetry timeline.
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For indexes of specific types and periods of poetry …
Sonnet Central is an archive of sonnets and commentary, and even accepts reader submissions. Explore authors alphabetically or use the Java Navigation Page to browse sonnets by subject. While it’s not the most modern looking site, it does offer readers a dependable source for reading, exploring and investigating sonnets.
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The Online Medieval & Classical Library is an archive of older literature, including poetry. Browse by author, title, genre or language.
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The Department of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign provides an online companion to the “Anthology of Modern American Poetry.” Although the site was created in 2000, its database of modern American poets is still quite substantial. The Poets section offers information on 161 poets with links to their poetry, commentary and analysis of various texts.
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Writing Poetry

While only a fraction of the population can make a real living writing poetry, that shouldn’t ... read more »

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