Tommy Nixon
Humanities Librarian
Davis Library
tommy_nixon@unc.edu
(919) 962-1151

Can't find the article, book, or report you need at our library? You can request it from another library through interlibrary loan.

Use this guide to find literary criticism on indvidual poems, to find where poems have been published separately in magazines or collected in anthologies, to find online poetry collections, and to locate biographical information on poets.

 FEATURED E-RESOURCES  (Off-campus access to some e-resources is limited to UNC faculty, students, and staff.)

Literature Online (LION) (Online Poetry)
LION is a fully searchable database of more than 350,000 English-language works of poetry, drama and prose. It also provides links to biographies, bibliographies and reference works. LION may be searched collectively or as individual literature collections (see the "Online Poetry" page for a full list of these individual collections). Editions used tend to be "original English spelling" versions, which can be especially problematic for early texts. When searching texts, select the "Variant Spellings" and "Variant Forms" to be included in your search. Use author and title "browse" indexes to identify specific poems.

MLA International Biography (Criticism)
This is an article database that indexes articles on poets and their poetry in scholarly journals, books, book chapters, conference proceedings and dissertations. MLA indexes articles on individual poems and, in cases where an individual poem may not be explicated, there may be general discussion of a poet and his/her themes, style, etc. MLA attempts to provide coverage of all literatures excepting Classical Greek and Latin.
Coverage: 1926-present

FEATURED PRINT RESOURCES

The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry in Anthologies. 13th ed. Tessa Kale, Editor. New York: Columbia University Press, c2007. (Index)
Indexes poems published in anthologies. Includes indexes for: Title, First Line, Last Line, Author and Subject. Indexes poems published through May 31, 2007. Earlier editions indexing different collections are available in the Davis Library stacks.
Davis Reference Desk PN1022 .H39 2007

Guide to British Poetry Explication. 4 vol. Nancy C. Martinez and Joseph G.R. Martinez. Boston, Mass: 1991-. (Criticism)
Provides citations to criticism on individual poems under author headings. Volumes in this Poetry Explication series are often the best starting place for such criticism.
Vol. 1: Old English, Medieval
Vol. 2: Renaissance
Vol. 3: Restoration-Romantic;
Vol. 4: Victorian-Contemporary
Davis Reference Desk AND Undergrad Library Reference Z2014.P7 M34 1991