Poetry*I pulled most of the books we have and they are on the cart. Use the table of contents and the index to find what you are looking for. Use OPALS to find poetry in books in the library. You can search by the poet’s name-- (ex:Robert Hayden) – If you just hit “enter” you’ll perform a keyword (anywhere) search which will bring up books by and about Robert Hayden. You can also perform an author search and that will give you just the books by Robert Hayden. If you need more...Most of the poetry books are in the 800’s section. Most of the American Poetry is located in the 811 call number area (other types of literature and criticism is also shelved here) – but there are exceptions for special types of poetry collections. This is a huge area of our collection so please use OPALS to find the book you want. Make sure you write down the complete call number including the first three letters of the author’s name. These will be on a cart reserved for 10H. If you need help, please ask Ms. Parker-Hennion. We have some great databases available with poems from the library’s home page LitFINDER– which has 125,000 full text poems, a subject navigator, explanations, biographies, the year’s best poetry, and pictures. The password is empirelink(which you will need for chromebook or at home)EBSCO is another great database on the library website: This database may be used from home or on a chromebook by typing in the user ID: tzhs and password: studentOther good websites to go to are: www.poets.org (The American Academy of Poets) http://www.poetryfoundation.org/(The Poetry Foundation)bartleby.com (Bartleby.com)http://www.loc.gov/poetry/,(The Library of Congress Poetry)Many contemporary poets have their own sites. (Even some “dead poets” have scholarly web pages dedicated to their work). Use the extension .edu to find a university that might specialize in your poet Be aware that some poems that are transferred online are spaced incorrectlySince this can change the meaning or rhythm of some poems, you may want to try to find a print source that accurately displays the spacing and organization of the poem.SEARCH TIP:dylan thomas site:.edu(no space between the colon and the .edu)
Finding Criticism and Explanations of Poetry Keep track of the criticism you find by using easybib, noodle tools or zotero.If you are using a book, you can put the ISBN number in and all of the publication information will come up.
The benefit of using GALE (including LitFinder) and EBSCO is that articles from these databases can be saved into your google drive with one click AND the citation can be saved in google drive too. LitFINDERis a great site for explanations of poetry. Use the sidebar under Content Types: Topic and Work Overviews. It also has some literary criticism. For more famous poets, you will find a wealth of information. The explanations can be considered literary criticism and may help you understand how some critics have interpreted a poem. Reading about your poet may give you some insight into their poetry. See the remote access username and password above. TheGale periodical database also has poetry resources. View or print these articles or save them to your google drive folder. To use Gale from home, the password is empirelink. Use the sidebar on the right and under subject, choose literary criticism, under document type choose critical essay. MLA citations from Gale can be exported directly to your Easybib account – have Easybib open with the project open first.ForEbsco, go to the Advanced Search Feature and scroll down to Document Type: Poetry or Poetry Review. To use EBSCO from home use the following login: tzhs and password: student. . Exports to your easybib account. Username is tzhs and password is student(Remember, all passwords are listed in the More tab under TZHS Students Only)
The Modern American Poetry site is another great resource that comes to you from the Dept. of English at the University of Illinois. Here there are discussions of specific poems that may be helpful to you. The Poetry Foundation is another excellent site that has criticism. Try Google Scholar or Google Books – experiment with search terms putting in the poem's title, author name, and the word "criticism". Many of the Google books are nearly complete and you may find enough without actually having to buy the online or print version of the book.
Public Library Literature DatabaseUse the Literature Resource Center (Gale) which can be accessed through the Public Library website. You may be asked for your library barcode – you may use your own or use the school’s which is barcode # 2 2828 00008 4192 (no spaces) Type in the poet’s name or use other search tools. This has a bit more than our Gale and Litfinder Sites and includes a resource called Poetry for Students. If you wish to print, please press print button within the database before you go to file and print so that it will format properly. But you can also save right to your google drive. Many of these online databases will create a citation for you which you can then use for your works cited. Remember, we use MLA 8 format. For questions, see your teacher or Ms. Parker-Hennion.
PRINT RESOURCES FOR LITERARY CRITICISM (see cart reserved for 10H) (most of this is already on the cart for you) Use OPALSto find books and use the following reference sources: For many of the more famous poets, we have books of criticism solely for that poet. Use OPALS and conduct a subject search. A Critical Survey of Poetry , Edited by Frank N. Magill (Ref. 809.1) . Use the index to look up your poet and then find the volume with the pages listed. Many students like this set because for each poet there are four or five pages of concise analysis/criticism discussing the poet's work as a whole, but also discussing specific poems. We are missing volume 6. American Writers and British Writers are two other great print sources that students have found helpful in the past (REF 810 and REF 810.9 respectively). Use the index in the newest volume and/or supplement to find the main entry on your poet (printed in bold). Literary criticism is integrated with biographical information and while these volumes discuss an author's entire body of work, including prose, they can be very helpful for students studying just the poetry. Keep track of the criticism you find by using easybib or another citation creator. You can enter the ISBN number of a book. Sometimes you have to add information to the citation easybib creates (Easybib will prompt you). Use MLA8.Please see Ms. Parker-Hennion if you have difficulty finding poetry or criticism for the poet(s) you have chosen. Go to the Ask the Librarian link and send an e-mail!