National Poetry Month

With tens of thousands of poems by thousands of authors, Bartleby.com offers one of the largest and oldest free full-text collections of verse on the web.

A good collection of full text classic poems.

180 full text poems compiled by Billy Collins, the former Poet Laureate.

This collection of full text poems from around the world can be browsed by subject, time period, poetic terms, occasion, and geographic region.

The collection covers roughly 7,000 works by about 800 poets - including some of the best known works in the English language - and many obscure and forgotten works that are well worth reading .

Curious about poetry, but don't know where or how to begin? Here is the first chapter from the book How to Read a Poem by Edward Hirsch.

What is poetry? How is it analyzed? What are the elements of poetry? Answers to these questions and many more from the Learning Lab of Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College.

A poetry explication is a relatively short analysis which describes the possible meanings and relationships of the words, images, and other small units that make up a poem. Writing an explication is an effective way for a reader to connect a poem’s plot and conflicts with its structural features. This handout reviews some of the important techniques of approaching and writing a poetry explication, and includes parts of two sample explications

Reproduced in partnership with the Great Books Foundation & Poets.org

Scholastic.com provides a lesson plan on understanding poetry, using Dickinson's "I'm Nobody! Who Are You?" as an example.

Use the guidelines listed to learn how to read a poem and understand it.

Welcome to Allen Ginsberg dot org, the website of the Allen Ginsberg Estate

Author of over 40 books of essays, poems, drama, and music history and criticism, a poet icon and revolutionary political activist who has recited poetry and lectured on cultural and political issues extensively in the USA, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe.

Complete resource for Billy Collins poems, books, recordings

Jim Carroll: poet, diarist, musician, and author of The Basketball Diaries

Joy Harjo (born May 9, 1951) is a Native American poet, musician, and author. She is often cited as playing a formidable role in the second wave of what critic Kenneth Lincoln has coined the Native American Renaissance.

Welcome to Maya Angelou’s Official Site. Dr. Maya Angelou is a remarkable Renaissance woman who is hailed as one of the great voices of contemporary literature.

Philip Michael Ondaatje is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist and poet. He won the Booker Prize for his novel The English Patient, which was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film.

Nikki Giovanni is a world-renowned poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator.