Poetry Criticism Resources
Analysis and explication of poetry can be found in both books and periodicals. Increasingly, they can also be found in many electronic resources. Here is a list of resources to help you find what others have had to say on the subject of individual poets and their work. It is important to remember that commentary on poetry is, for the most part, limited to a relatively small number of important or well-known poems by major poets. Recently published poems generally will not have passed the test of time and will probably have had very little (or nothing at all) written about them. For assistance locating or using any of these resources, or if you need further help with literary research, contact Mike Russo.
7 Bookmarks Found with These Tags:

United.States [X]
Bibliographies [X]
American and British Poetry: A Guide to the Criticism 1925-1978
Middleton Reference: Z1231 .P7 A44 1984 Scope: Indexes poems of 1,000 lines or less. Indexing: Alphabetical by name of poet.
Middleton Main Stacks: Z1231 .P7 G74 1989 This work is divided into three main sections: Magazines, Anthologies, and Poets. The work focuses primarily on American writers, though many foreign writers (mostly British) are also included. The Biographical Directory of Poets focuses on poets who currently write SF, Fantasy, and Horror Poetry. The work includes an index.
Guide to American poetry explication
Middleton Reference: Z1231 .P7 G85 1989 Volume 1—Colonial and Nineteenth Century Volume 2—Modern and Contemporary
Invisible Poets: Afro-Americans of the Nineteenth Century
Middleton Main Stacks: PS153 .N5 S48 This work focuses on twenty-six lesser-known African American Poets who published poetry in America during the nineteenth century. As a result, Paul Lawrence Dunbar is not included. Biographical information is included for all authors. The work is divided into one chapter per poet. It also includes sections on: bibliographies of the poets' works, an index and seven appendices. The appendices provide some bibliographic information for the following topics: Poets for Further Research, Occasional Poets, Anonymous Poets and Ada, Turn-of-the-Century Poets, Poets Erroneously Identified as Afro-Americans, the Creole Poets of Les Cenelles, and Phyllis Wheatley and Jupiter Hammon: Bibliographies.
Middleton Reference: Z2014 .P7 K8 1980 Scope: Covers the years 1925 to 1977, but is limited to poems of less than 500 lines. Indexing: Indexed alphabetically by poet.
The continuity of American poetry
Middleton Main Stacks: PS303 .P4 This work originated from Pearce's 1954 lectures on the history of American poetry at the Sulzburg Seminar in American Studies. Its ten chapters cover American poetry roughly from the seventeenth century to the 1950's. The work has an index, which is the best way to find criticism on individual authors.
The sonnet in England and America : a bibliography of criticism
Middleton Main Stacks: Z2014 .S6 D66 This work is divided into four chapters. Chapter one contains general works. Chapter two focuses on the renaissance. Chapter three is devoted entirely to Shakespeare. Chapter four covers eighteenth and nineteenth century literature. Poets are listed alphabetically in each chapter. All entries are numbered. The work contains a poet index, a contributor index, and a subject index.

