The PTC library has all sorts of sources to help with the Poetry Analysis Assignment! The Online Catalog and the Literature/Humanities databases are all great places to find information about your poet and to help you understand and analyze your poem. Databases are dedicated to specific subjects and/or source types, while the online catalog searches all source types and subjects in the print and electronic collections. If you are unsure where to start, click on the Need Help? tab of this guide to chat with a librarian. Research isn't always an easy or quick process, and it's okay to ask for help!
Enter your poet's name and the title of your poem here:
(for example, if I were searching for sources on The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, my keyword search would look like this:
"The Raven" AND "Edgar Allan Poe")
Your first step in the research process is to find information about your poet and your poem. You might find a summary/explanation article about your poem or biographical information about your poet that makes you interested in analyzing a particular theme in your paper. Once you have narrowed your topic and thought about keywords, try searching the databases below for potential sources you can use to support your thesis. If your keywords are not working, try using synonyms or ask a librarian for help!
To learn about the poem's author, use Biography in Context.
The following databases have lots of sources for poetry criticism. Begin your search by entering the name of the poem. If there are a lot of results, you can add the conjunction word "and," and then the theme you are researching.
If you struggle to find sources on your poem, it can be helpful to check other databases as well--someone in a subject area besides literature may have written about your poem and explored its themes! If you are still having difficulty finding sources that talk about your poem, contact a librarian for help.
The Oxford Companion to Modern Poetry
by
This impressive volume provides over 1,500 thoroughly revised and updated entries on modern poets active from 1910 to the present day. An extensive guide to the lives of influential poets writing in English, in Britain and around the world, this companion helps to illuminate the influences, inspirations, and movements that have shaped the lives and works of our best-loved poets.First published in 1994 as the Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Poetry in English and compiled by a team of 230 experts, including famous poets such as Blake Morrison and Andrew Motion, this edition also includes new biographical entries on more contemporary poets such as Don Paterson, Anne Carson, John Kinsella, and Leslie Marmon Silko. It also contains insightful entries by well-known peers, such as Seamus Heaney on Robert Lowell and Anne Stevenson on Sylvia Plath. The A-Z biographies are complemented by new appendices including coverage of poetry events and movements and lists of anthologies and important poetry prizes and prize-winners. In addition, many entries include details of in-depth supplementary material available online on the dedicated companion website. This superb reference work is the ideal companion for students of English Literature, Language, and Creative Writing, as well as for anyone with an interest in modern poetry.
The Princeton Handbook of Poetic Terms
by
An essential handbook for literary studies The Princeton Handbook of Poetic Terms--drawn from the latest edition of the acclaimed Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics--provides an authoritative guide to the most important terms in the study of poetry and literature. Featuring 226 fully revised and updated entries, including 100 that are new to this edition, the book offers clear and insightful definitions and discussions of critical concepts, genres, forms, movements, and poetic elements, followed by invaluable, up-to-date bibliographies that guide users to further reading and research. Because the entries are carefully selected and adapted from the Princeton Encyclopedia, the Handbook has unrivalled breadth and depth for a book of its kind, in a convenient, portable size. Fully indexed for the first time and complete with an introduction by the editors, this is an essential volume for all literature students, teachers, and researchers, as well as other readers and writers. Drawn from the latest edition of the acclaimed Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics Provides 226 fully updated and authoritative entries, including 100 new to this edition, written by an international team of leading scholars Features entries on critical concepts (canon, mimesis, prosody, syntax); genres, forms, and movements (ballad, blank verse, confessional poetry, ode); and terms (apostrophe, hypotaxis and parataxis, meter, tone) Includes an introduction, bibliographies, cross-references, and a full index
The Princeton Handbook of World Poetries
by
An authoritative and comprehensive guide to poetry throughout the world The Princeton Handbook of World Poetries--drawn from the latest edition of the acclaimed Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics--provides a comprehensive and authoritative survey of the history and practice of poetry in more than 100 major regional, national, and diasporic literatures and language traditions around the globe. With more than 165 entries, the book combines broad overviews and focused accounts to give extensive coverage of poetic traditions throughout the world. For students, teachers, researchers, poets, and other readers, it supplies a one-of-a-kind resource, offering in-depth treatment of Indo-European poetries (all the major Celtic, Slavic, Germanic, and Romance languages, and others); ancient Middle Eastern poetries (Hebrew, Persian, Sumerian, and Assyro-Babylonian); subcontinental Indian poetries (Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Urdu, and more); Asian and Pacific poetries (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Mongolian, Nepalese, Thai, and Tibetan); Spanish American poetries (those of Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Chile, and many other Latin American countries); indigenous American poetries (Guaraní, Inuit, and Navajo); and African poetries (those of Ethiopia, Somalia, South Africa, and other countries, and including African languages, English, French, and Portuguese). Complete with an introduction by the editors, this is an essential volume for anyone interested in understanding poetry in an international context. Drawn from the latest edition of the acclaimed Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics Provides more than 165 authoritative entries on poetry in more than 100 regional, national, and diasporic literatures and language traditions throughout the world Features extensive coverage of non-Western poetic traditions Includes an introduction, bibliographies, cross-references, and a general index
Contemporary Poets: Critical Survey of Poetry
by
Profiles the most influential and celebrated contemporary poets around the globe. Salem's comprehensive coverage of poets and poetry continues with this two-volume supplement to the Critical Survey of Poetry (14 volumes, 2011). Containing 200 all new entries in two volumes, this collection of biographical profiles brings the Critical Survey up to the present day. The articles detail the lives and works of poets who have been active in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries who did not appear in the original 14-volume set. We've included profiles of such popular poets as: -Eileen Myles -Walter Griffin -Morgan Parker -Javier Zamora -Dawn Lundy-Martin -IN-Q -Mei-mei Berssenbrugge -David Daniels Also covered are critically-acclaimed poets who have been recognized with major awards, including recent winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the National Book Award for Poetry, and the Ruth Lilly Prize: -Forrest Gander (Pulitzer, 2019) -Tyehimba Jess (Pulitzer, 2017) -David Ferry (National Book Award, 2012; Ruth Lilly Prize, 2011) -Justin Phillip Reed (National Book Award, 2018) -Peter Balakian (Pulitzer Prize, 2016) -Daniel Borzutsky (National Book Award, 2016) -Ed Roberson (Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, 2016) -Robin Coste Lewis (National Book Award, 2015) -Mary Szybist (National Book Award, 2013) -Terrance Hayes (National Book Award, 2010) -Vijay Seshadri (Pulitzer, 2014) Designed for high school students and undergraduates, these easy-to-understand analytical essays provide new and interesting ways that the work of these influential, contemporary poets can be discussed and appreciated.
A Little History of Poetry
by
A vital, engaging, and hugely enjoyable guide to poetry, from ancient times to the present, by one of our greatest champions of literature--selected as the literature book of the year by the London Times "[A] fizzing, exhilarating book."--Sebastian Faulks, Sunday Times, London "Delightful.'"--New York Times Book Review What is poetry? If music is sound organized in a particular way, poetry is a way of organizing language. It is language made special so that it will be remembered and valued. It does not always work--over the centuries countless thousands of poems have been forgotten. But this Little History is about some that have not. John Carey tells the stories behind the world's greatest poems, from the oldest surviving one written nearly four thousand years ago to those being written today. Carey looks at poets whose works shape our views of the world, such as Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Whitman, and Yeats. He also looks at more recent poets, like Derek Walcott, Marianne Moore, and Maya Angelou, who have started to question what makes a poem "great" in the first place. For readers both young and old, this little history shines a light for readers on the richness of the world's poems--and the elusive quality that makes them all the more enticing.
The New Anthology of American Poetry
by
Volume I begins with a generous selection of Native American materials, then spans the years from the establishment of the American colonies to about 1900, a world on the brink of World War I and the modern era. Part One focuses on poetry from the very beginnings through the end of the eighteenth century. The expansion and development of a newly forged nation engendered new kinds of poetry. Part Two includes works from the early nineteenth century through the time of the Civil War. The poems in Part Three reflect the many issues affecting a nation undergoing tumultuous change: the Civil War, immigration, urbanization, industrialization, and cultural diversification. Such well-recognized names as Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor, Phillis Wheatley, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Stephen Crane appear in this anthology alongside such less frequently anthologized poets as George Horton, Sarah Helen Whitman, Elizabeth Oakes-Smith, Frances Harper, Rose Terry Cooke, Helen Hunt Jackson, Adah Menken, Sarah Piatt, Ina Coolbrith, Emma Lazarus, Albery Whitman, Owl Woman (Juana Manwell) Sadakichi Hartmann, Ernest Fenollosa, James Weldon Johnson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and--virtually unknown as a poet--Abraham Lincoln. It also includes poems and songs reflecting the experiences of a variety of racial and ethnic groups.
A Body of Water
by
Beautiful and lyrical, Chioma Urama's A Body of Water is a poetic exploration of ancestry in the American South. These poems are the result of a conversation Urama opened with her ancestors, whose documented and oral histories have been fragmented by a history of enslavement. Urama's examination of generational trauma collapses linear time and posits that the traumas of the past are present within the consciousness of our bodies until we transmute the energy surrounding them. The work ebbs and flows between pared-down poems where erasure and white space take on substance and roiling lyric essays that fold in divergent voices from historic documents, music, and film. This collection is both vulnerable and political; a meditation on love and grief; an exploration of loss and connectivity. These poems embrace imagination as a tool to emotionally traverse spaces within history that we are told we cannot enter. A Body of Water is an act of remembering, engaging with the idea that "all water has a perfect memory," and nothing is ever truly lost.
Conversations with South Carolina Poets
by
Hard Lines: Rough South Poetry
by
A collection of contemporary poems exploring the grit of work, love, and the land down South Daniel Cross Turner and William Wright's anthology Hard Lines: Rough South Poetry centers on the darker side of southern experience while presenting a remarkable array of poets from diverse backgrounds in the American South. As tough-minded as they are high-minded, the sixty contemporary poets and two hundred poems anthologized in Hard Lines enhance the powerful genre of "Grit Lit." The volume gathers the work of poets who have for some decades formed the heart of southern poetry as well as that of emerging voices who will soon become significant figures in southern literature. These poems sting our sensesinto awareness of a gritty world down South: hard work, hard love, hard drinking, hard times; but they also explore the importance of the land and rural experience, as well as race-, gender-, and class-based conflicts. Readers will see, hear (for poetry is meant to ring in the ears), and feel (for poetry is meant to beat in the blood); there is plenty of raucousness in this anthology.And yet the cultural conflicts that ignite southern wildness are often depicted in a manner that is lyrical without becoming lugubrious, mournful but not maudlin. Some of these poets are coming to terms with a visibly transforming culture--a "roughness" in and of itself. Indeed many of these poets are helping to change the definition of the South. The anthology also features biographical information on each poet in addition to further reading suggestions and scholarly sources on contemporary poetry. Featured Poets: Betty Adcock, David Bottoms, Kathryn Stripling Byer, James Dickey, Rodney Jones, Yusef Komunyakaa, Ron Rash, Dave Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Charles Wright, Fred Chappell, Kelly Cherry, Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, Kate Daniels, Kwame Dawes, Claudia Emerson, Andrew Hudgins, T. R. Hummer, Robert Morgan, Ellen Bryant Voigt, Dan Albergotti, Tarfia Faizullah, Forrest Gander, Terrance Hayes, Judy Jordan, John Lane, Michael McFee, Paul Ruffin, Steve Scafidi, Jake Adam York
Peach State Poems
by
Peach State has its origins in Atlanta, Georgia, the author's hometown and an emblematic city of the New South, a name that reflects the American region's invigoration in recent decades by immigration and a spirit of reinvention. Focused mainly on food and cooking, these poems explore the city's transformation from the mid-twentieth century to today, as seen and shaped by Chinese Americans. The poems are set in restaurants, home kitchens, grocery stores, and the houses of friends and neighbors. Often employing forms--sonnet, villanelle, sestina, palindrome, ghazal, rhymed stanzas--they also mirror the constant negotiation with tradition that marks both immigrant and Southern experience. Excerpt from "You're from the South?" As if it had never joined the Union.As if we had to go through Customs when bringing Vidalia onionsto uncles and cousins in the North, where Confuciansand their brethren flock for education. As if our speech required translationor at least interpretation. As if Hartsfield-Jacksonwere a plantation, the Amtrak Crescenta moon over rows of cotton, and all of us a populationthat never saw snow or migration.
State of the Heart. Volume 3 : South Carolina writers on the places they love
by
A heartfelt collection of personal stories that connect a common past and offer hope for a promising future For many, South Carolina is a sunny vacation destination. For those who have been lucky enough to call it home, it is a source of rich memories and cultural heritage. In this final volume of State of the Heart, thirty-eight nationally and regionally known writers share their personal stories about places in South Carolina that hold special meaning for them. While this is a book about place, it is ultimately about people's connections to one another, to a complex, common past, and to ongoing efforts to build a future of promise and possibility in the Palmetto state. Editor Aïda Rogers groups the essays thematically, with poetry, vintage photographs, and even recipes introducing each section. She unites pieces by New York Times best-selling novelists Patti Callahan Henry, CJ Lyons, and John Jakes; USA Today best-selling mystery writer Susan Boyer; historians Walter Edgar, Orville Vernon Burton, and Bernard Powers; artist and author Mary Whyte; and cookbook authors Sallie Ann Robinson and the Lee Brothers--just to name a few. Nikky Finney, a South Carolina native and winner of the 2011 National Book Award for poetry, provides the foreword. The afterword is written by Cassandra King, author of six novels, including the New York Times best seller The Sunday Wife. Includes essays by: Pilley Bianchi, Kim Boykin, Susan M. Boyer, Orville Vernon Burton, Emily Clay, Marian Wright Edelman, Walter Edgar, Mindy Friddle, Kendra Hamilton, Kristine Hartvigsen, Patti Callahan Henry, Chris Horn, John Jakes, David Lauderdale, Matt Lee, Ted Lee, Melinda Long, CJ Lyons, Tom Mack, Michael L. Miller, Margaret N. O'Shea, Katr Sally Palmer, John W. Pilley Jr., Jon Pineda, Mark Powell, Bernard E. Powers Jr., Pat Robertson, Sallie Ann Robertson, Jonathan Sanchez, Alex Sanders, Martha R. Severens, Jim Welch, H. A. (Humpy) Wheeler, Mary Whyte, Jane Floyd Zeneger
State of the heart : South Carolina writers on the places they love
by
In State of the Heart, Aïda Rogers has crafted an artful love letter to our state, with contributions from a host of nationally and regionally recognised writers who have written short essays on the South Carolina places that they cherish. This anthology provides a multifaceted historical and personal view of the Palmetto State. Thematically organised, this collection offers a geographic and emotional scope that is as diverse as its contributors. Sportswriters describe beloved arenas; historians reflect on church ruins and forts. A playwright recalls the magic of her first theatre experience; a food writer revels in a coastal joint that serves fresh oysters. Backyards, front porches, a small library at a children's home, the Savannah River Site, and places that are gone except in the memories of the writers who loved them-these are just a few of the locales covered, all showing how South Carolina has changed and inspired people in a variety of ways. State of the Heart evokes a sense of history and timelessness by bringing together heartfelt responses to South Carolina rooted in memory, drawing on reflection, inspiration, and love. The anthology reveals a state that is more than a playground for tourists; it is a state of human hiding places that echo in the hearts of its literary citizens. Though presented as a book about place, the collection is ultimately about our shared connections to one another, to a complex common past, and to ongoing efforts to frame and build a future of promise and possibility.
State of the Heart South Carolina Writers on the Places They Love, Volume 2
by
South Carolina is a state of inspiration as well as recreation. Through its natural beauty, storied heritage, and curious character, the Palmetto State finds its way into the hearts and imaginations of every native, resident, and guest to set foot on its 32,000 square miles of soil. Continuing the format of the popular original, this second volume of State of the Heart: South Carolina Writers on the Places They Love celebrates and commemorates the connections that the accomplished contributors have found in the well-known and far-flung locations most dear to them. With companionable charm and storytellers' spirits, editor Aïda Rogers and the thirty-eight contributors invite you to amble across South Carolina with them for a chance to see the state as they have come to know it. For writers beloved places can captivate, teach, comfort, and occasionally haunt. In this collection contributors reflect on their hometowns, the rivers and roads that marked their lives' journeys, and the maligned neighborhoods they transformed just by living and working in them. Family beach vacations, churches and churchyards, athletic arenas modest and grand, a mountain vista, a quiet pond, a city park, an old-time produce market, Lake Murray, Brookgreen Gardens--these are just a sampling of the nearly three dozen private and public places favored by this diverse group of writers of fiction, memoir, poetry, history, journalism, and more. Photographs, artwork, verse, and even a few recipes accompany the essays, bringing readers further into sharing the writers' experiences. While State of the Heart is rooted in the landscape of South Carolina, readers from anywhere will relate to its universal themes of growing up and growing old, recognition of past mistakes, returned-to faith, the closeness of family and friends, honoring those who came before, and setting our collective sights on the promise of the future for cherished people and places. Marjory Wentworth, South Carolina's poet laureate, provides the foreword to this collection, which includes her poem "One River, One Boat." Includes essays by: Ron Aiken, Jack Bass, Nancy Brock, Jim Casada, Emily L. Cooper, Ronald Daise, Christopher Dickey, Tom Diggers, Sue Duffy, Pam Durban, Margaret Shinn Evans, Herb Frazier, Sammy Fretwell, Shani Gilchrist, Vera Gómez, Harlan Greene, Rachel Haynie, Tommy Hays, Josephine Humphreys, Thomas L. Johnson, Charles Joyner, Janna McMahan, Ray McManus, Ben McC. Moïse, Mary Alice Monroe, Patricia Moore-Pastides, Glenis Redmond, Rose Rock, Valerie Sayers, Bernie Schein, George Singleton, Kate Stagliano, Michael Smoak, Ernest L. Wiggins, Susan Millar Williams, Curtis Worthington
The Words and Wares of David Drake: Revisiting I Made This Jar and the Legacy of Edgefield Pottery
by
A celebration of the remarkable poem vessels of Dave the Potter David Drake, who often signed his work simply as "Dave," was an enslaved potter who lived and worked in Edgefield District, South Carolina. Despite laws prohibiting enslaved people from learning to read or write, Drake was literate and signed some of his pots. His practice was not only to add his name and a date but also to embellish his work with commentary or verse--a powerful statement of resistance. The Words and Wares of David Drake collects multifaceted scholarship about David and his craft. Building on the 1998 national traveling exhibit catalog, I Made This Jar: The Life and Works of Enslaved African-American Potter, Dave, and featuring more than one hundred beautiful images and six new essays, this authoritative volume presents the diverse perspectives of scholars, artists, and collectors. The Words and Wares of David Drake adds important depth and context to our understanding of both Edgefield pottery and Drake's life. David's work was the cornerstone of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's traveling exhibit of nineteenth-century ceramic art from Edgefield. * Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (September 8, 2022-February 5, 2023) * Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (March 6, 2023-July 9, 2023) * University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor (August 26, 2023-January 7, 2024) * High Museum of Art, Atlanta (February 16, 2024-May 12, 2024)