Seamus Heaney is the most illustrious name among those posted and all are clearly
Posted in General on 26. Aug, 2010
Seamus Heaney is the most illustrious name among those posted, and all are clearly explained in the accompanying material. Americans Robert Pinsky, Philip Levine, Richard Wilbur and Margaret Walker, and Polish-Lithuanian Czeslaw Milosz are also here.The Academy of American Poets www.poets /Featuring around 200 poets, the Academy is moving slowly towards its goal of creating an online encyclopaedia of poets there are more than 800 poets waiting to be added. Those already online are an eclectic and international bunch including Homer, Rilke and Browning alongside more contemporary writers. Each has a biography, bibliography and links to work by or about them. There are also audio recordings, discussion forums and links to international calendars of poetry events. This is a businesslike, efficient site that is definitely worth watching.Bartleby www.bartleby /index.htmlBartleby specialises in free literature; ie, works that can be provided gratis on the Web, and among its thousands of volumes it offers some top-quality poetry.
The poetry is searchable by author, title or first line and there’s pretty much every classic poet imaginable including Dickinson, Housman, Eliot, Whitman, Frost, Sassoon, Sandburg and Hardy. It’s worth emphasising that there are entire collections here, rather than just a few poems, with more being added all the time.Poetry : International Library of Poetry www.poetry For sheer volume, this site is hard to beat in the poetry stakes as it features the work of over 2.4 million poets. Admittedly, the quality isn’t uniformly glorious (they run a raft of poetry competitions and entry qualifies for a posting). However they also make space for the famous with “100 Greatest Poems” and “100 Greatest Love Poems” The links to other sites are equally exhaustive. Many of these are personal poetry sites and it may take a while to strike gold, but this is an excellent starting point for international poetry or less mainstream genres such as cowboy poetry. There’s also a merchandising section, for poets who want their verse displayed on mugs, plaques, aprons or T-shirts.Poetry Daily www.poems For anyone in a poetic rut, this site is a brilliant way to climb out and sample unfamiliar work.
It displays a different poem each day hoping to lessen the urge to “tie the poem to a chair with a rope and torture a confession out of it”. Readers can browse from poems posted over the previous year and the fact that they come from published sources ensures some sort of quality control. It’s a simple idea, executed well, and rewards a daily browse.Poetry Book Society www.poetrybooks.co.uk/Given the lack of specialist poetry bookshops in this country, the Poetry Book Society is a brilliant resource. It’s a membership organisation, costing £32 a year in the UK (with a discount if you join online), for which members get a quarterly bulletin featuring news, events and competitions. Members can also buy poetry books with at least 25 per cent discount.