Class Guide » ENGL 4400: Studies in Verse

Overview

The library has many resources that can help with your assignments for this and other classes. For a more complete list of resources, see the English Language and Literature subject guide. Ask a Librarian can answer quick questions by email. You can stop by or call the Central Reference desk at 387-5178.

Finding Books

Use WMU’s Library Catalog, WestCat, to locate books, videos, films, sound recordings, slides and journals owned by WMU Libraries.

To search for books about authors and their works use the Basic Search, searching for the author as a subject heading (last name first), otherwise use Advanced Search to find books on your topic.

If WMU Libraries do not have the book, you can borrow it from another library through Interlibrary Loan, though you must register first. Or borrow from a Michigan library through MeLCat.

Biographical Information

Dictionary of Literary Biography
PS221.D5 (Ref) 1978-present
Now available online, the print consists of hundreds of volumes, each covering a distinct literary period, genre, or theme, with extensive essays, frequently illustrated with images of the author and his/her works, which link biography with interpretations of the literary work. Included are literary authors, journalists, historians, screenwriters, scholars, critics, and publishers. Though international is scope, emphasis is on those authors writing in English. Some authors appear in more than one volume. Use the online index or the index in the latest published volume to find all the previous volumes.

Contemporary Authors Z 1224 .c6 (Ref)
Part of the Literature Resource center, this directory provides brief biographical information about more than 120,000 authors from the US and elsewhere. Includes writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, journalism, and many other fields.

How to Locate Poems

If you want a book of poems by a specific poet look under his or her name as an author in the Basic Search of the Library Catalog. If you want to find references to specific poems by author, title, first line, or subject, begin with these resources.

Poem Finder (LitFinder) More than 125,000 full-text poems and over 850,000 poems indexed. Search by any word(s) in a poem title, first line, last line, book title, author, or subject. International in scope (in English translation) and covers antiquity to the present.

Academy of American Poets A multi-media resource providing information on over 400 American poets, including biographical and bibliographical information, the full-text of selected poems, audio clips, and related web sites.

Chadwyck-Healy Literature Collections Full text of English and American poetry, drama, and fiction from different time periods. The Literature Online database organized by collections.

Columbia Granger's Dictionary of Poetry Quotations
PN 6082 .C57 1992 (Ref - Desk Coll.)
Use the keyword index if you are trying to identify a specific poem, or the subject index if you're looking for a poem on a subject. The body of this book contains the most frequently quoted selections from famous poems. You will need to use a source like Poem Finder (Lit Finder) or the Electronic Poetry Center if you want to get a copy of the whole poem.

Electronic Poetry Center Provides easy access not only to poetry "published" electronically but to more conventional printed poetry and poet web pages.

Granger's Index to Poetry PN 1022 .G7 (Ref - Most recent in Desk Coll.)
This source indexes anthologies or collections of poetry. You can look up a poem by its title, first line, last line, author, or subject. Once you've found the title of a collection containing your poem, check WestCat to see if we own that book. The first edition of Granger's was published in 1904. Later editions often do not index poems that have already been listed in previous editions.

Index of American Periodical Verse PN 1021 .I5x (Ref) 1971-present. An annual title and author index to poems published in periodicals in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. If you find a poem you're looking for in this index you need to search WestCat, the Libraries' catalog, to see if we own the periodical in which that poem is printed.

Literature Online (LION) A searchable full-text database of more than 350,000 works of English and American poetry, drama and prose, literary criticism from over 200 literature journals and various reference resources. Includes biographies, bibliographies, and links to Web sites.

Poetry Index Annual
PN 1022.P63 (Ref)
This index systematically indexes all poetry anthologies as they are published. Thus these volumes cover anthologies Columbia Granger's Index misses, since that series is selective. Each annual edition of Poetry Index Annual complements and supplements the preceding editions. Poems are separately indexed by author, title, and subject. An alphabetical symbol stands for the name of the anthology in which the poems appear. 1982-1993.

Literary Criticism

MLA International Bibliography (Modern Language Association) Z 7006 .M64 (Ref. Index Shelves) (1921-present)
Indexes periodicals and series, monographs, book collections, dissertation abstracts, Festschriften (books written to honor a particular scholar), and other sources. Areas covered include modern languages and literature, folklore, linguistics, literary themes, genres, and related topics across national literatures and other classified boundaries. Covers from 1963 to the present. Updated 9 times per year.

Poetry Criticism PN 1010 .P499 (Ref)
Multi-volume series with excerpts from criticisms of the most significant and widely studied poets of world literature.

Poetry Explication: A Checklist of Interpretations Since 1925 of British and American Poems Z 2014 .P7 K8 (Ref)
A handy volume selectively listing interpretations of some of the best known poems. The sources listed under article indexes in this guide will also be useful in locating explications of poetry.

Ask A Librarian

Maira Bundza, E-mail: maira.bundza@wmich.edu
Phone: 269-387-5207
Last updated: October 2007