Poetry Websites
- Poetry FoundationThe Poetry Foundation website has a robust collection of poetry, filterable by lots of different criteria (topic, author, occasion). Subscribe to their poem of the day emails!
- Poetry 180 PoemsA project aimed at making poetry more part of our daily lives, Poetry 180 is a collection of 180 poems curated for accessibility, and there's a real variety of poetry here-- if one doesn't work for you, try another.
- Poets.org PoemsWith more of an emphasis on contemporary poetry than Poetry Foundation, Poets.org is also well-indexed and searchable/filterable.
Poetry Recitations
If poetry on the page isn't grabbing you, try listening to (or watching) someone else reciting poetry!
- Poetry Out Loud VideosPoems read adeptly by teenagers, in the national finals of the Poetry Out Loud contest. Kareem Sayegh, reading "The Man-Moth", is a Uni alum, class of 2009!
- Classic Poetry AloudClassic Poetry Aloud is an archive of hundreds of classic poems read out loud by a guy with a lovely voice. If you've already selected a classic poem, but want to hear it spoken aloud, this is your resource.
Catalog Search Tutorial
Uni High physical collection
To select a book of poetry you can pick up from the Uni library, follow the instructions in the video above, or pick from the selection below.
Once you've selected a book and confirmed it's on the shelf, email Paul (p-kothe@illinois.edu) to arrange a pickup, or use the form from class.
Please Excuse This Poem by ISBN: 9780670014798Publication Date: 2015-03-10One hundred poems. One hundred voices. One hundred different points of view. Here is a cross-section of American poetry as it is right now-full of grit and love, sparkling with humor, searing the heart, smashing through boundaries on every page. Please Excuse This Poem features one hundred acclaimed younger poets from truly diverse backgrounds and points of view, whose work has appeared everywhere from The New Yorker to Twitter, tackling a startling range of subjects in a startling range of poetic forms. [...]
Rookie on Love by ISBN: 9780448493992Publication Date: 2018-01-02A single-subject anthology about the heart's most powerful emotion, edited by Tavi Gevinson. Featuring exclusive, never-before-seen essays, poems, comics, and interviews from contributors like Jenny Zhang, Emma Straub, Hilton Als, Janet Mock, John Green, Rainbow Rowell, Gabourey Sidibe, Mitski, Alessia Cara, Etgar Keret, Margo Jefferson, Sarah Manguso, Durga Chew-Bose, and many more!
Ink Knows No Borders by ISBN: 9781609809072Publication Date: 2019-03-12With authenticity, integrity, and insight, this collection of poems addresses the many issues confronting first- and second- generation young adult immigrants and refugees, such as cultural and language differences, homesickness, social exclusion, human rights, racism, stereotyping, and questions of identity. Poems by Elizabeth Acevedo, Erika L. Sanchez, Samira Ahmed... [...]
Books Available Digitally
Want a book, but don't want to arrange a pickup? Some printed collections of poetry are available online through the university. Get started with these, or search the catalog for more.
- Dark Horses byISBN: 0252030532Publication Date: 2007-01-15Too many amazing poems end up overlooked by the academy and excluded from the canon, remaining largely unknown to the poetry-reading public. Joy Katz and Kevin Prufer's Dark Horses joyfully rediscovers dozens of these poems, recognizes their power, and illuminates their significance.
Book of Rhymes by ISBN: 9780465003471Publication Date: 2009-02-24[...] Examining rap history's most memorable lyricists and their inimitable techniques, literary scholar Adam Bradley argues that we must understand rap as poetry or miss the vanguard of poetry today. [...]
Uni Library Anthologies
Anthologies are a great resource-- they have poems of a wider diversity of styles and authors than a single poetry collection, and someone has decided each of them is worthy of including. If you want a physical anthology to go through, request it from the Uni library!
The Penguin Anthology of 20th-Century American Poetry by ISBN: 9780143106432Publication Date: 2011-10-25Penguin proudly presents an unparalleled survey of the best poems of the past century. Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and former U .S. Poet Laureate, introduces readers to the most significant and compelling poems of the past hundred years.
Angles of Ascent by ISBN: 9780393339406Publication Date: 2013-02-04This is not just another poetry anthology. It is a gathering of poems that demonstrate what happens when writers in a marginalized community collectively turn from dedicating their writing to political, social, and economic struggles, and instead devote themselves to the art of their poems and to the ideas they embody.[...]
Of Poetry and Protest by ISBN: 9780393352733Publication Date: 2016-06-21This extraordinary volume collects the poems of forty-four of America's most talented African American wordsmiths, including Pulitzer Prize winning poets Rita Dove, Natasha Tretheway, Yusef Komunyakaa and Tracy K. Smith, as well as the work of other luminaries such as Elizabeth Alexander, Ishmael Reed, Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez. [...]
The Oxford Anthology of African-American Poetry by ISBN: 0195125630Publication Date: 2005-10-01For over two centuries, black poets have created verse that captures the sorrows, joys, and triumphs of the African-American experience. Reflecting their variety of visions and styles, The Oxford Anthology of African-American Poetry aims to offer nothing less than a definitive literary portrait of a people. [...]
