There is nothing like an engaging poetry lesson in the spring of the school year. Baseball favorites like Casey at the Bat and spring classics such as Robert Frost’s A Prayer in Spring are among the thousands of both popular and lesser known poems—old and new—found in Poetry & Short Story Reference Center through the Michigan eLibrary. Beyond the poems, however, there are dozens of resources specifically designed to support instruction, interpretation, research, and the understanding of poetry.

Poetic Forms, Themes &Techniques

If you’re on the hunt for some examples of acrostic poetry, blank verse, parodies, satire, or even nursery rhymes, then you will want to check out the link to Poetic Forms, Themes & Techniques found in the Browse section. The ability to search by themes such as courage, fear, and freedom as well as techniques that include allegory, allusion, couplet, iambic dimeter, and parallelism makes this an incredibly helpful resource.

Periods, Movements & Schools

Searching for poems or poets from a particular period or movement has never been easier. Also found in the Browse section, the Periods, Movements & Schools tool allows you to find poems specific to Abolitionism, American Realism, Chicago Renaissance, Gilded Age, Harlem Renaissance, and Romanticism among hundreds of others.

Poem Analyses

With poems listed alphabetically and the ability to search by title, the Poem Analyses feature offers a summary and brief analysis of individual poems. Analyses of Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe, Casey at the Bat by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, Harlem by Langston Hughes, and Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll are just a handful of the hundreds of analyses available.

Keep using Poetry & Short Story Reference Center to search for your favorite poems, but don’t forget that there is information in there to help you with classroom instruction too.

If you are having any issues linking to items on this page, please explore the MeL eResource Access Page. Contact melerhelp@mcls.org for help.

Brought to you by Ann Kaskinen from the MeL Team. 

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Ann Kaskinen
MeL Engagement Specialist K12
Midwest Collaborative for Library Services (MCLS)
(800) 530-9019 ext 150