Classic Poetry Text Archives
The American Verse Project
The University of Michigan’s Humanities Text Initiative is assembling an archive of whole volumes of American poetry published prior to 1920. Everyone is here from Stephen Vincent Benét to Emily Dickinson to Edgar Allan Poe to Robert W. Service to John Greenleaf Whittier (but no Walt Whitman), and all the texts are searchable in a variety of convenient ways.
The University of Michigan’s Humanities Text Initiative is assembling an archive of whole volumes of American poetry published prior to 1920. Everyone is here from Stephen Vincent Benét to Emily Dickinson to Edgar Allan Poe to Robert W. Service to John Greenleaf Whittier (but no Walt Whitman), and all the texts are searchable in a variety of convenient ways.
Bartleby.com
Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass was the first classic book published on the Web in its entirety by The Bartleby Project after it began in 1993. The collection remains very strong in poetry, whole books all, even as Bartleby.com has expanded to include a comprehensive set of references including Roget’s Thesaurus, The Columbia Encyclopedia and Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.
Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass was the first classic book published on the Web in its entirety by The Bartleby Project after it began in 1993. The collection remains very strong in poetry, whole books all, even as Bartleby.com has expanded to include a comprehensive set of references including Roget’s Thesaurus, The Columbia Encyclopedia and Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.
The Electronic Text Center
At the University of Virginia, the Electronic Text Center has a vast collection of modern English literature (unfortunately not all publicly accessible, but broad because they consider “modern” to begin in 1500) and several other especially good etext selections: British Poetry 1780 - 1910 in scholarly editions, separately indexed texts by women writers and literature in translation.
At the University of Virginia, the Electronic Text Center has a vast collection of modern English literature (unfortunately not all publicly accessible, but broad because they consider “modern” to begin in 1500) and several other especially good etext selections: British Poetry 1780 - 1910 in scholarly editions, separately indexed texts by women writers and literature in translation.
eMule Poetry Archives
The eMule Poetry Archives are a collection of classic poetry (at last count 5048 poems by 153 poets) no longer under copyright, so the emphasis is on poems published more than 75 years ago. The site’s search engine will only search through the author, title and first line of every poem in the database, but they say they are working on a full-text search engine.
The eMule Poetry Archives are a collection of classic poetry (at last count 5048 poems by 153 poets) no longer under copyright, so the emphasis is on poems published more than 75 years ago. The site’s search engine will only search through the author, title and first line of every poem in the database, but they say they are working on a full-text search engine.
Passions in Poetry
Ron Carnell’s compendious anthology of “Poems for the People, Poems by the People” offers love poems, sad poems, friendship poems, poems on life, an assorted poetry buffet and a good collection of classic English poems — all categorized and some selected as poetry greeting cards so that you can find just the right poetic thought to speak for you.
Ron Carnell’s compendious anthology of “Poems for the People, Poems by the People” offers love poems, sad poems, friendship poems, poems on life, an assorted poetry buffet and a good collection of classic English poems — all categorized and some selected as poetry greeting cards so that you can find just the right poetic thought to speak for you.
Poets’ Corner
A wide ranging and useful collection, including some complete books, a bibliography, a subject index for finding poems on your chosen topic, a “Daily Poetry Break” chosen from the archive and lots of poems from the last five centuries in English, all brought to you by Steve Spanoudis, Bob Blair, Jon Lachelt, Nelson Miller and many volunteer contributors.
A wide ranging and useful collection, including some complete books, a bibliography, a subject index for finding poems on your chosen topic, a “Daily Poetry Break” chosen from the archive and lots of poems from the last five centuries in English, all brought to you by Steve Spanoudis, Bob Blair, Jon Lachelt, Nelson Miller and many volunteer contributors.
Project Gutenberg Poetry
Project Gutenberg is the grandaddy of etext efforts, having begun in 1971 (!), and its database includes hundreds of complete books of poetry. The texts are all public domain, typed by volunteers who believe in the books they enter into the project, and available for download in plain-text and zip formats. (You can view the plain texts on your Web browser.)
Project Gutenberg is the grandaddy of etext efforts, having begun in 1971 (!), and its database includes hundreds of complete books of poetry. The texts are all public domain, typed by volunteers who believe in the books they enter into the project, and available for download in plain-text and zip formats. (You can view the plain texts on your Web browser.)
Representative Poetry On-Line
The University of Toronto English Library has gathered a large collection of poem-texts by 500 poets “from Caedmon, in the Old English period, to the verge of copyright in the twentieth century” — originally put together as a teaching anthology in 1912, now available online, searchable and also including a glossary, timeline and a good selection of classic poetry criticism in prose and verse.
The University of Toronto English Library has gathered a large collection of poem-texts by 500 poets “from Caedmon, in the Old English period, to the verge of copyright in the twentieth century” — originally put together as a teaching anthology in 1912, now available online, searchable and also including a glossary, timeline and a good selection of classic poetry criticism in prose and verse.
Voices from the Gaps
The University of Minnesota’s compendium on the lives and works of women of color will take you from Phillis Wheatley to Emily Pauline Johnson to June Jordan and Joy Harjo.
The University of Minnesota’s compendium on the lives and works of women of color will take you from Phillis Wheatley to Emily Pauline Johnson to June Jordan and Joy Harjo.