LibGuides: All Databases: Poetry &amp; Short Story Reference Center

Poetry & Short Story Reference Source

Poetry & Short Story Reference Source This link opens in a new window
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Includes poems, plays, speeches, classic books, biographies, critical analyses, contextual essays, and essays on poetic forms, literary terms, techniques, and movements, and 2,800 audio recordings of readings.

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Using Poetry & Short Story Reference Source

Using the Database
About the Database

How to Search the Database

You can search by author name, by poem or short-story title, by poem forms or techniques, by periods and movements, and by themes.

You can also browse categories and highlighted content further down on the database's homepage. When you click these boxes, a new page will load where you can further drill down to find what you're looking for. These topic areas include:

Authors
Works
Literary Periods and Movements
Literary Forms, Styles, and Techniques
Lesson Plans and Infographics

For example, if you click on the Authors topic, it opens up to reveal further subcategories, as shown below.

Once you do your text search or use the topic area boxes to narrow your browsing areas, there are options to further filter your results down. These filters are shown below and include:

Full Text
Peer Reviewed
All Time (includes 3 options: last 12 months, last 5 years, and last 10 years)
Source Type:
- Literary Criticism
- Books
- Reference Books
- Interviews
- Poems
- Literary Works

When you're ready to read the document you chose, just click on the icon that says "Access Now (PDF)."

A Historically Rich Collection of Poems, Short Stories, and More

Poetry & Short Story Reference Source includes plays and speeches, classic books, biographies, critical analyses, contextual essays and explications for important works, and essays on poetic forms, literary terms, techniques, and movements. The database provides contemporary content from the finest publishers including Knopf, Houghton Mifflin, New Directions, Copper Canyon Press, and dozens of authors and estates.

Poetry showcases from The Paris Review highlight current and emerging poets and their works. Each showcase includes the poet’s biography, two to six poems, and an interview with the poet. Audio recordings of these interviews, as well as poets reciting their works, are also available.

Poetry & Short Story Reference Source also contains selected works of major and minor American and English poets, along with international poetry representing each continent (accompanied by English translations, when available).

Content Highlights:

Over 400,000 full-text poems, both classic and contemporary
57,000 full-text short stories, both classic and contemporary
4,100 full-text dramatic works
1,150 full-text books focused on poetry, drama, and short stories
More than 2,800 audio recordings of poets reading their own works from the Academy of American Poets, poets reading works of other poets, and podcasts from The Poetry Foundation
High-quality videos provided by the Academy of American Poets
More than 430 full-text explications of both classic and contemporary poems

Intuitive User Experience

Available through Explora, Poetry & Short Story Reference Source offers a variety of features and functionality to support research success and productivity. In addition to simple and advanced search options and powerful filters, users can explore topics by category, including authors, works, literary periods and movements, and literary forms, styles, and techniques.

Each category breaks down into popular, colloquial, or curriculum-based subtopics that are logical for all users and friendlier to novice researchers. Clicking on the subtopic brings the user to a page with a topic overview, related subtopics, overview articles, sample search results (with the option to view all results), and a carousel of relevant e-books (when available).