Blog - Steve

Author Index

Title Index -Jon

Subject Index -Jon

FAQ

Daily Poetry Break Archive -Bob

Lives of the Poets -Nelson

Faces of the Poets

Bookshelf

Favorites

Traditional Works

Contributors

Bibliography

Other Works

Other Sites

Bob Blair
in Texas,
Jon Lachelt
in Colorado,
Nelson Miller
in Georgia,
and Steve Spanoudis
in Florida,

With many and substantial contributions from volunteers around the world.

Notes:
(1)If your own favorite poem is missing understand that: it may still be under copyright (1923 or later in the US), which makes us unable to include it. If the poem is past copyright and you would like it included, please E-mail the poem, poet, and publishing date to Steve. All poems presented here are believed to be past copyright restrictions in the U.S.. If you live outside the U.S., please check local copyright rules to understand what you may, or may not do with the text or images posted here.

(2) We tend to steer away from certain material because of strong sexual or prejudicial content some things may be unsuitable due to the broad range of our users.

(3)You are welcome to link to any part of the collection. Duplication or re-publishing of this collection, its layout, hypertext formatting or custom images in any media without permission are restricted.

Welcome to Poets' Corner, one of the largest and oldest text resources on the web. The goal of this project is to create a user-friendly library of works that promotes browsing and exploring through a site that spans thousands of works by hundreds of authors covering thousands of years.

These works have been assembled by the Editors through their own efforts, and through the efforts of volunteer contributors from around the world. You will find many works here, both obscure and familiar, from well and lesser known poets. Works range from medieval ballads in middle English to traditional ballads, popular songs of centuries past, and interpretations of American Indian chants.

The poems on display range from single stanzas to entire books, with a large selection of sonnets, narrative poems, and topical works to choose from. The site itself is named for the corner of Westminster Abbey which serves as both resting place and memorial for many of England's great poets, though the works in the collection span the English-speaking world and include some translated works.

If you are looking for something in particular, you can generally find it through one of the sets of index files. The Author and Title/First line indices include all the Poets featured in the collection, and all of their included works. You can also check out the What's new page for recent additions or changes to the collection.

For the casual visitor, there is a Quick Sampler of selected shorter works. If you're looking for more substantial reading, there's a guide to Longer Works. And. as a more dynamic offering, Bob provides a Daily Poetry Break, with a new selection every weekday and an archive that merits many hours of browsing in its own right.

If you an approximate but not exact idea of what you want, the seach window at the top of the left column is a Yahoo search through all of The Other Pages. It does not reach Bob's collections or the Daily Poetry Break archive, so you'll have to browse those separately.

If your favorite poem or poet is missing, please keep in mind that copyright resticts us to materials published in some form or other before 1923 in the U.S. or those we have explicit permission to use.

There is an index of Suggestions for Further Reading for further reading, which lists many excellent modern poems suggested by our editors and contributors, as well as a growing index of published books of poems, listed by author.

There is also a Bibliography of some suggested hardcopy sources -- including many which were used to compile parts of this collection, a list of credits for those who have contributed to the collection, and lastly a brief Guide to works found elsewhere on the Web.

Why does this site exist? That is a surprisingly hard question to answer. It started in early 1995 as an experiment, grew into a pastime (a certain spouse would surely say obsession), and has become a substantial resource for those who enjoy or study poetry of all types, and appreciate the accessibility provided by the Web.

This site has been recognized by numerous search engines (Britannica, Magellan, WebCrawler, Point, etc.), Publications (New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Yahoo Internet Life), Broadcasters (the BBC, Oxygen) numerous university programs, and many, many of its users around the world.

About the images: (a) A very young Edna St. Vincent Millay, cropped from a Library of Congress photograph of the poet. (b) An engraving of William Cullen Bryant, a poet and editor whose Library of World Poetry is one of the original books on which this collection is based. (c) Sketch of a young William Wordsworth.