Introductions to Poetry and Poetry Reading
Biographies
Biographies provide extensive details about a person's life. Biographies are a great place to start research.
- Contemporary PoetsThomas Riggs. 7th ed. Detroit: St. James Press, 1996.
Provides brief biographical and bibliographic information for poets, as well as contact information when available.
- Biography Index Retrospective This link opens in a new window
Alternate version: Biography Index Retrospective in the classic EBSCO user interface (best for exporting more than 50 results or combining saved searches). Covers biographical content about people from antiquity to 1983 appearing in periodicals indexed in other Wilson databases from 1946 to 1983. The database includes articles and book citations as well as interviews and profiles of history-makers. It covers asked-about public figures, including writers, artists, statesmen, sports figures, politicians, religious leaders, scientists, educators, military leaders, teachers, actors, business people, and more. Searchable by personal name and profession.
- Dictionary of Irish Biography This link opens in a new windowContains over 9,000 signed biographical articles on the careers of Irish men and women who made a significant contribution from the earliest times to the year 2002 in Ireland and abroad in all fields of endeavour, including politics, law, religion, literature, journalism, architecture, painting, music, the stage, science, medicine, engineering, entertainment and sport. Also includes articles on people born outside Ireland who had noteworthy careers in Ireland. Articles may be searched by name, gender, birth or death place, birth or death dates, religion, occupation, contributor, or keywords.
- Dictionary of Literary Biography Complete Online This link opens in a new windowProvides biographical and critical essays on the lives, works, and careers of the world's most influential literary figures from all eras and genres.
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography This link opens in a new window
This link opens in a new window
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford DNB) is the national record of men and women who have shaped British history and culture, worldwide, from the Romans to the 21st century. The Dictionary offers concise, up-to-date biographies written by named, specialist authors. - ProQuest One Literature This link opens in a new windowThis database contains 3 million literature citations from thousands of journals, monographs, dissertations, and more than 500,000 primary works. These include rare and obscure texts, multiple versions, and non-traditional sources like comics, theatre performances, and author readings. It also includes book reviews and criticism related to this content.
Full-Text
Our library databases featured here include the entire text of poems and/or articles.
- African American Poetry This link opens in a new windowAfrican American Poetry contains nearly 3,000 poems by African American poets of the 18th and 19th centuries. It provides a comprehensive survey of the early history of African American poetry, from the earliest published African American poems to the works of Paul Laurence Dunbar. The authors and works included in the collection show the huge variety of this relatively unexplored area of American literary history, including writers from all areas of the United States, with different backgrounds and poetry styles.
- American Poetry This link opens in a new windowThis database contains over 40,000 poems by more than 200 poets, covering the Colonial period to the early twentieth century, and drawn from over 1,200 printed sources. The entire text of each poem has been included. Any accompanying text written by the poet and forming an integral part of the poem, such as dedications, notes, arguments and epigraphs, is also generally included. The bibliographic basis of this database is the Bibliography of American literature (Yale University Press, 1955-1991).
- Columbia Granger's World of Poetry This link opens in a new windowIndex to poetry, including full-text and excerpts of some poems. This online version contains the contents of the following works: Columbia Granger's index to poetry in anthologies (eds. 8-11), Columbia Granger's index to poetry in collected and selected works, Columbia Granger's guide to poetry anthologies (2nd ed.), Columbia Granger's dictionary of poetry quotations, Classic hundred poems, as well as new content not published previously in print
- English Poetry This link opens in a new windowContains more than 183,000 poems, comprising essentially the complete canon of poetry in English from the 8th century to the early 20th. Drawn from nearly 4,900 sources, the collection represents the work of more than 2,700 poets. The main bibliographic source is the New Cambridge bibliography of English literature, 1969-1977. Also includes poetry written in English by authors from Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the world.
- Poetry Criticism This link opens in a new windowPart of Gale Literature Criticism Online. The database presents literary criticism on the works of poets of all nations, cultures, and time periods. Critical essays are selected from leading sources, including published journals, magazines, books, reviews, diaries, newspapers, broadsheets, pamphlets, and scholarly papers.
- Twentieth-Century African American Poetry This link opens in a new windowA collection of poetry written by the most important and influential African-American poets of the 20th century. Includes the complete text of each poem and any integral textual images or illustrations, as well as any accompanying text, such as dedications, notes, acknowledgements, prefaces, introductions, epigraphs.
Review Websites
These websites offer book recommendations for readers.
Professional Organizations
The main professional organization for Creative Writing is the:
Association of Writers & Writing Programs
Another new professional organization for Creative Writing is the:
Open Access and Internet Access
Includes works that are made freely available online.
E-Book Collections
- Digitale Bibliothek Deutscher Klassiker This link opens in a new windowCovers the works of major German authors spanning eleven centuries and includes historical, philosophical, theological, political and art history texts. Collections of essays, speeches and other non-literary material add context and background material.
- Early English Books Online This link opens in a new windowReproduces works listed in: Pollard & Redgrave's Short-title catalogue, Wing's Short title catalogue and Thomason tracts, online via ProQuest Direct.
- EBSCO eBook Collection This link opens in a new window
Alternate version: EBSCO eBook Collection in the classic EBSCO user interface (best for exporting more than 50 results or combining saved searches). Provides the full-text of thousands recently-published books from selected academic and commercial publishers, as well as the full-text of a large number of older works in the public domain.
- Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) This link opens in a new windowA comprehensive digital edition of The Eighteenth Century microfilm set, which has aimed to include every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom, along with thousands of important works from the Americas, between 1701 and 1800. Consists of books, pamphlets, broadsides, ephemera. Subject categories include history and geography; fine arts and social sciences; medicine, science, and technology; literature and language; religion and philosophy; law; general reference. Also included are significant collections of women writers of the eighteenth century, collections on the French Revolution, and numerous eighteenth-century editions of the works of Shakespeare. Where they add scholarly value or contain important differences, multiple editions of each individual work are offered.
- Goethe Werke This link opens in a new windowThis database consists primarily of the Weimar edition of Goethe's works, originally published between 1887-1919 by Hermann Böhlau. It is supplemented by Goethes Gespräche, edited by Woldemar Freiherr von Biedermann (Leipzig, 1889-1896) and all the letters discovered since the completion of the Weimar edition: Goethes Werke, Nachträge zur Weimarer Ausgabe, edited by Paul Raabe (dtv, München, 1990).
- Loeb Classical Library This link opens in a new windowA fully searchable, virtual library of Greek and Latin literature with English translations. Includes epic and lyric poetry; tragedy and comedy; history, travel, philosophy, and oratory; the great medical writers and mathematicians; and, those Church Fathers who made particular use of pagan culture. Users can browse, search, bookmark, annotate, and share content.
- OpenEdition This link opens in a new windowOpenEdition serves the humanities and social sciences research communities through four complementary publication and information platforms in the humanities and social sciences : Revues.org, calenda, hypotheses and OpenEdition books.