how to quote lines of poetry in an essay

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MLA Formatting Quotations

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When you directly quote the works of others in your paper, you will format quotations differently depending on their length. Below are some basic guidelines for incorporating quotations into your paper. Please note that all pages in MLA should be double-spaced .

Short quotations

To indicate short quotations (four typed lines or fewer of prose or three lines of verse) in your text, enclose the quotation within double quotation marks. Provide the author and specific page number (in the case of verse, provide line numbers) in the in-text citation, and include a complete reference on the Works Cited page. Punctuation marks such as periods, commas, and semicolons should appear after the parenthetical citation.

Question marks and exclamation points should appear within the quotation marks if they are a part of the quoted passage, but after the parenthetical citation if they are a part of your text.

For example, when quoting short passages of prose, use the following examples:

When using short (fewer than three lines of verse) quotations from poetry, mark breaks in verse with a slash, ( / ), at the end of each line of verse (a space should precede and follow the slash). If a stanza break occurs during the quotation, use a double slash ( // ).

Long quotations

For quotations that are more than four lines of prose or three lines of verse, place quotations in a free-standing block of text and omit quotation marks. Start the quotation on a new line, with the entire quote indented 1/2   inch  from the left margin while maintaining double-spacing. Your parenthetical citation should come  after the closing punctuation mark . When quoting verse, maintain original line breaks. (You should maintain double-spacing throughout your essay.)

For example, when citing more than four lines of prose, use the following examples :

Nelly Dean treats Heathcliff poorly and dehumanizes him throughout her narration: They entirely refused to have it in bed with them, or even in their room, and I had no more sense, so, I put it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it would be gone on the morrow. By chance, or else attracted by hearing his voice, it crept to Mr. Earnshaw's door, and there he found it on quitting his chamber. Inquiries were made as to how it got there; I was obliged to confess, and in recompense for my cowardice and inhumanity was sent out of the house. (Bronte 78)

When citing long sections of poetry (four lines of verse or more), keep formatting as close to the original as possible.

In his poem "My Papa's Waltz," Theodore Roethke explores his childhood with his father:

The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We Romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself. (qtd. in Shrodes, Finestone, Shugrue 202)

When citing two or more paragraphs, use block quotation format, even if the passage from the paragraphs is less than four lines. If you cite more than one paragraph, the first line of the second paragraph should be indented an extra 1/4 inch to denote a new paragraph:

In "American Origins of the Writing-across-the-Curriculum Movement," David Russell argues,

Writing has been an issue in American secondary and higher education since papers and examinations came into wide use in the 1870s, eventually driving out formal recitation and oral examination. . . .

From its birth in the late nineteenth century, progressive education has wrestled with the conflict within industrial society between pressure to increase specialization of knowledge and of professional work (upholding disciplinary standards) and pressure to integrate more fully an ever-widening number of citizens into intellectually meaningful activity within mass society (promoting social equity). . . . (3)

Adding or omitting words in quotations

If you add a word or words in a quotation, you should put brackets around the words to indicate that they are not part of the original text:

If you omit a word or words from a quotation, you should indicate the deleted word or words by using ellipses, which are three periods ( . . . ) preceded and followed by a space. For example:

Please note that brackets are not needed around ellipses unless they would add clarity.

When omitting words from poetry quotations, use a standard three-period ellipses; however, when omitting one or more full lines of poetry, space several periods to about the length of a complete line in the poem:

Home / Guides / Citation Guides / How to Cite Sources / How to Cite a Poem in MLA

How to Cite a Poem in MLA

When writing a research essay, you may want to include poetry. It can be difficult to know how to cite a poem properly since it’s a particular type of resource that can be found online, in a book, or in an anthology.

This page contains everything you need to know to cite a poem in MLA style within your paper and on your reference page, as well as how to properly quote poems of different lengths within your paper. This page also contains information on creating your citations, formatting examples, and what details you need to compile before you can begin.

This guide follows rules established in the MLA Handbook , 9th edition, but is not officially associated with the Modern Language Association.

What You Need

Before you can create your poem citation, you will need to gather information on your source. If available, find:

• Poet’s first and last name
• Line, page number, or page range
• Title of the poem
• Year of the original and/or source publication
• Title of the book of poetry it’s in
• Title of the website it’s on
• Title of the anthology it’s in
• Name of the publishing company or website publisher
• URL (if applicable – online sources only)
• Editor(s) first and last name(s) (if applicable – anthologies only)

Citing a Poem Found Online 

Since poems can come from multiple sources, there are a few basic formats you can follow to create a citation. The formatting guidelines are different depending on where you found the poem. This section contains the basic format for any poetry you found online, including if it’s a PDF from another source.

Basic format:

Poet’s Last Name, First Name. “Title of the Poem.” Year of poem’s original publication (if available). Title of the Website, Name of Website Publisher, URL. Accessed day month year.

Frost, Robert. “Birches.” 1969. Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44260/birches. Accessed 1 Mar. 2020.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

• Begin the citation with the poet’s last name, with the first letter capitalized. Follow the last name with a comma and then the poet’s first name, also with a capitalized first letter. Follow the first name with a period.
• Put the title of the poem in quotation marks. Place a period after the title of the poem within the quotation marks. The title of the poem should be capitalized in title case (using capital letters only at the beginning of principal words).
• Put the numerical year of the poem’s original publication. You may have to do research beyond your online source for the poem to find this information. Follow the numerical year with a period.
• Put the title of the website in italics. Be sure to use title case capitalization here again. Follow the website title with a comma.
• Put the name of the website publisher in normal text (not italicized), using title case capitalization. Follow with a comma.
• Put the URL for your web source, without including https:// at the beginning. Follow the URL with a period.
• Write the word “Accessed” (with a capital A, without the quotation marks) followed by the date you looked up the web resource. The format for the date should be: the numerical day, capitalized and spelled-out month, and full numerical year. Be sure to place a period after the year to end your citation. The date should not include commas. So, for example, if the date you accessed your web source was March 12, 2020, you would finish your citation with “Accessed 12 Mar. 2020.” The access date is supplemental and may not always need to be included.

Citing a Poem from a Book

The formatting guidelines for citing a poem from a book are different from the guidelines for citing a poem found online. Note that anthologies have their own citation format. An anthology is a collection of works from different authors. This section contains the basic guidelines for citing a poem from a book. The format for anthologies is provided in the next section.

Basic Format: 

Poet’s Last Name, First Name. “Title of the Poem.” Title of the Book, Name of Publishing Company, Year of publication, page number or page range.

Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken.” Robert Frost Selected Poems, Fall River Press, 2011, p. 25.

• Put the title of the book where you read the poem in italics and title case, followed by a comma.
• Put the name of the publishing company in normal text (not italicized) as it is capitalized in the book, followed by a comma. This should be in title case since it is a proper noun. You do not need to include the location of the publisher.
• Put the numerical year of the book’s publication (which may be different from the year of the poem’s original publication), followed by a comma.
• Provide the page number(s) for the poem you are citing using “p.” or “pp.” and the page number or page range. For example, if the poem is on page 26, put p. 26. If the poem spreads across two or more pages, use “pp.” For example, if the poem is from page 26-29, put pp. 26-29. Follow the page number with a period to end your citation.

Citing a Poem from an Anthology

The guidelines for citing a poem from an anthology are different from the guidelines for citing a poem found online or even in a poetry book. An anthology is a compilation of different works from different authors or artists. The following format is for poems from an anthology.

Basic Format for a poem in an anthology: 

Poet’s Last Name, First Name. “Title of the Poem.” Title of Anthology, edited by Editor’s First and Last Name, edition (if applicable), volume (if applicable), Publisher, year of anthology publication, page number or page range.

Drummond, William. “Life.” The Giant Book of Poetry , edited by William Roetzheim, Level4Press Inc, 2006, p. 55.

• Put the title of the anthology where you found the poem in italics and title case, followed by a comma.
• For two editors, separate the names with the word “and” rather than an ampersand.
• For three or more editors, use commas to separate each editor’s name, using “and” only between the last two editors.
• If applicable to the anthology, include the book’s edition (e.g., 4th ed.) followed by a comma.
• If applicable to the anthology, include the book’s volume number (e.g., vol. 2) followed by a comma.
• Put the name of the publishing company in normal text (not italicized) as it is capitalized in the anthology, followed by a comma. You do not need to include the location of the publisher.

In-Text Citations

Unlike the reference page citations, MLA in-text citations for poems are generally the same regardless of the source. The examples below follow Sections 6.22 and 6.36 from the Handbook.

For in an-text citation, all you need to provide is:

• The poet’s last name
• The line number(s) or page number of the poem you are referencing

(Poet’s Last Name, line(s) #-#)

(Chaucer, lines 6-10)

If you state the author’s name within the sentence, you may just include the line numbers in parentheses instead of repeating the author’s name in the in-text citation. If no line numbers for the poem exist, do not count the lines yourself. Instead, include a page number.

As stated by Chaucer, “Thoght ye to me ne do no daliance” (line 8).

Quoting Up to Three Lines of Poetry

Using a direct quote from a poem is different from making a reference to a poem within your paper. To use a direct quote, you must put it in quotation marks.

To quote anything from a partial line of poetry up to three lines of poetry, you can simply use quotations and a “/” symbol to separate the lines, with a space on either side of the slash. Following the in-text citation guidelines in the section above, place your in-text citation at the end of your quote in parentheses, after the closing quotation marks and before the period.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – / I took the one less traveled by / And that has made all the difference” (Frost, lines 18-20).

In Robert Frost’s poem, he states, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – / I took the one less traveled by / And that has made all the difference” (lines 18-20).

Quoting Four or More Lines of Poetry

If you’d like to directly quote four or more lines of poetry within your paper, you will need to follow different guidelines than the ones above for three or fewer lines of poetry. When quoting four or more lines of poetry, you will not use quotation marks. Here are more formatting guidelines:

• In most cases, you will use a colon (:) at the end of the sentence before you begin your direct quote from the poem.
• After the sentence introducing the quote, leave an empty line before beginning the quote.
• You must separate a long quote from the rest of your paper by using a half-inch indent from the left throughout the quote.
• Instead of using a “ / ” to separate the lines of poetry, try to follow the original format of the poem as closely as possible.
• If a line is too long to fit across the page, use a hanging indent, so that the remainder of the line is more indented than the rest of the block quote.
• Place your in-text citation in parentheses at the end of the quote, following the last period (or other punctuation) of the quote and without punctuation after the closing parentheses. If the citation will not fit on the line, add it to the following line on the right-hand side of the page.

The poem describes choices in life by using the metaphor of a fork in the road:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth; (Frost, lines 1-5)

MLA Handbook . 9th ed., Modern Language Association of America, 2021.

Published October 21, 2013. Updated May 18, 2021.

Written by Grace Turney. Grace is a former librarian and has a Master’s degree in Library Science and Information Technology. She is a freelance author and artist.

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In-text citation for a poem can be in the following format:

• If you are quoting two or three lines of a poem, the quote should be placed within double quotation marks with a slash as a line separator, with one space on either side. (Stanzas should be separated with a double slash.) The quote should be followed by the author’s last name and the line numbers within parentheses.
• If the author’s name is already mentioned in text, only the line number should be inserted within parentheses next to the quotation.
• If there is no line number available for the poem, page numbers can be used.

William Wordsworth wrote, “The storm came on before its time: / She wandered up and down” (lines 11-12).

• If you are quoting four or more lines of a poem, your quote should be an indented block quote rather than enclosed within quotation marks.
• A colon should be placed at the end of the introductory text with a blank line following it.
• The full block quote should be indented a half inch throughout and match its original formatting as closely as possible.
• The author’s last name and line numbers should be placed at the end of the quotation within parentheses. The end period should be placed before the source.

The author was inspired by the lines of a poem: Not blither is the mountain roe: With many a wanton stroke Her feet disperse the powdery snow, That rises up like smoke. (Wordsworth, lines 13–16)

To cite a poem or short story, include the following details: the author’s name, year published, title of the poem/story, title of the book where you located or read the poem (if applicable), book editor’s first and last name (if applicable), publisher name, and page numbers.

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• Spartanburg Community College Library
• SCC Research Guides
• Citing a Poem

Like other sources, poem citations begin with the poet's last name. However, there are some different MLA rules when it comes to citing lines of poetry.

• Works Cited
• In-Text Citation Rules
• In-text, Quoting 1 Line
• In-text, Quoting 2-3 Lines
• In-text, Quoting 4+ Lines

Citing a Poem: Works Cited

Poem in a book.

Format:  Author(s). "Title of Part."  Title of Book in Italics , edited by Editor, edition, vol. #, Publisher, Year,  page number(s).  Database Name  in Italics  (if electronic),  URL.

Example:  Lazarus, Emma. "The New Colossus."  The Norton Introduction to Literature,  edited by Kelly J. Mays, shorter 14th ed., W.W. Norton, 2022, p. 752. 

Poem from a Website

Format:  Author(s). “Poem Title.” Original publication year.  Title of Website in Italics , Website Publisher (if different than title), Date of publication, URL. Access Date.

Example:  Angelou, Maya. "Still I Rise." 1978.  Poetry Foundation , www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46446/still-i-rise. Accessed 21 Sep. 2022.

• Use "line" or "lines" in your in-text if the source lists line numbers rather than page numbers.
• For the first citation include the word  "line" or "lines" before the numbers
• After the first in-text citation establishing that you will be using lines for that partacular source, you no longer need to use the word line or lines.
• (Frost, lines 145-48)
• (Frost 145-48).
• Note: If you are citing only one source for your entire paper/project, then you do not need to repeat the author's last name/title in the in-text citations as long as it's clear that you're referencing the outside source. This means your first in-text citation could look like (Frost, lines 145-48), but later in that paragraph if your next citation could just be the line number, like this (152). 

Quoting a single line of poetry

In-Text Format:  (Poet Last Name, line number)

Example:  "So better by far for me if you were stone" (Duffy, line 17).

Note:  Only include the line numbers if they are already included in the poem you are citing. You do not need to count line numbers if they are not already included. If you find the poem in a book, you can use the page number(s) for the poem. If you found the poem online and there are no page numbers or line numbers, you only need to include the poet's last name.

Quoting 2-3 lines of poetry

When quoting 2-3 lines of poetry, use a forward slash ( / ) to mark the line breaks. If there is a stanza break between the lines you are quoting, use a double slash ( // ). Be sure to put a space before and after the slash. 

Use the exact punctuation, capitalization, and styling as used in the original text.

Format:  (Poet Last Name, line number(s))

Example:  "Wasn't I beautiful? / Wasn't I fragrant and young? // Look at me now" (Duffy, lines 40-42).

Quoting 4+ lines of poetry

When quoting 4 or more lines of poetry, use a block quote. Be sure to keep the spacing, punctuation, and capitalization the same as it is in the poem.

Example:  In the poem "Medusa," Medusa discusses why she wants to turn the man she loves into stone: Be terrified. It's you I love, perfect man, Greek God, my own; but I know you'll go, betray me, stray from home. So better by far for me if you were stone. (Duffy, lines 12-17)

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MLA Style Guide, 8th & 9th Editions: Citing Poetry

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MLA Poetry Citations

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Table of Contents

Ai, ethics & human agency, collaboration, information literacy, writing process, quoting plays and poetry in mla.

• © 2023 by Angela Eward-Mangione - Hillsborough Community College

The rules for quoting drama and/or poetry in Modern Language Association (MLA) Style differ from those for quoting the genre of prose. This article discusses rules for using MLA style to format quotes from drama and poetry. Consult the MLA Handbook to learn more.

Quoting Poetry

The MLA Handbook offers specific guidelines for quoting poetry.

In addition to the amount quoted and line breaks, other factors that matter include stanza breaks, and unusual layouts.

Special Issues: Stanza Breaks, Unusual Layouts

Stanza Breaks: Mark stanza breaks that occur in a quotation with two forward slashes, with a space before and after them ( / / ) (78).

William Carlos Williams depicts a vivid image in “The Red Wheelbarrow”: “so much depends / / upon / / a red wheel / / barrow / / glazed with rain / / water / / beside the white / / chickens” (“Williams”).

Unusual Layouts: If the layout of the lines in the original text is unusual, reproduce it as accurately as you can (79).

The English metaphysical John Donne uses indentation in some of his poems to create unusual layouts, as the first stanza of including “A Valediction: of Weeping” demonstrates:

Let me pour forth My tears before they face, whilst I stay here, For thy face coins them, and thy stamp they bear, And by this mintage they are something worth, For thus they be Pregnant of thee; Fruits of much grief they are, emblems of more, When a tear falls, that thou falls which it bore, So thou and I are nothing then, when on a divers shore. (lines 1-9)

Quoting Plays

When you must quote dialogue from a play, adhere to these rules:

• Set the quotation off from your text.
• Indent each name half an inch from the left margin and write it in all capital letters.
• Follow the name with a period and then start the quotation.
• Indent all other lines in the character’s speech an additional amount.
• When the dialogue shifts to another character, start a new line indented half an inch.
• Maintain this pattern throughout the quotation (80).

Example: One of the flashbacks in Margaret Edson’s Wit suggests Vivian Bearing’s illness causes her to question some of her previous interactions with students:

STUDENT 1. Professor Bearing? Can I talk to you for a minute?

VIVIAN: You may.

STUDENT 1: I need to ask for an extension on my paper. I’m really sorry, and I know your policy, but see—

VIVIAN: Don’t tell me. Your grandmother died.

STUDENT 1: You knew.

VIVIAN: It was a guess.

STUDENT 1: I have to go home.

VIVIAN: Do what you will, but the paper is due when it is due. (63)

Special Issues

Omissions: Follow the rules for omissions in quotations of prose (83).

Although some of the rules for quoting plays and poetry in MLA differ than those for quoting prose, understanding the guidelines will help you apply them in any scenario.

Donne, John. “The Bait.” The Complete English Poems . Penguin Books, 1971, pp. 43-4.

—. “The Break of Day.” The Complete English Poems . Penguin Books, 1971, pp. 45-6. Edson, Margaret. Wit. Faber and Faber, 1993.

Shakespeare, William. Sonnet 39. The Pelican Shakespeare: The Sonnets . Penguin Books, 1970, p. 59.

Williams, William Carlos: “The Red Wheelbarrow.” Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/resources/learning/core-poems/detail/45502 .

Yeats, William. “A Prayer for My Daughter.” The Collected Poems . Ed. Richard Finneran. Scribner, 1983, pp. 188-190.

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MLA Citation Guide (9th Edition): Poetry

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On This Page: Poetry

Poetry taken from an edited collection.

• Poetry Taken From a Website

In-Text Citation Rules for Poetry

Abbreviating months.

In your works cited list, abbreviate months as follows: 

January = Jan. February = Feb. March = Mar. April = Apr. May = May June = June July = July August = Aug. September = Sept. October = Oct. November = Nov. December = Dec.

Spell out months fully in the body of your paper. 

Note : For your Works Cited list, all citations should be double spaced and have a hanging indent.

A "hanging indent" means that each subsequent line after the first line of your citation should be indented by 0.5 inches.

Author of Poem's Last Name, First Name. "Title of Poem."  Title of Book: Subtitle if Any , edited by Editor's First Name Last Name, Edition if given and is not first, Publisher Name often shortened, Year of Publication, pp. Page Numbers of the Poem.

Learn more: See the  MLA Handbook , pp. 78-79, 121-122

Poetry Taken from a Website

Author's Last Name, First Name. "Title of Poem." Title of Website, Name of Organization Affiliated with the Website, Date of copyright or date last modified/updated, URL. Accessed Day Month Year site was visited .

Learn more: See the  MLA Handbook,  pp. 121-122

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How to Cite a Poem Using APA Style

Last Updated: December 18, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Michelle Golden, PhD . Michelle Golden is an English teacher in Athens, Georgia. She received her MA in Language Arts Teacher Education in 2008 and received her PhD in English from Georgia State University in 2015. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 163,489 times.

The American Psychological Association (APA) style guide is very popular, especially in the social sciences. If you need to write a paper in APA style, there are a lot of different formatting rules to consider. Citing sources, such as poems, can be one of the most confusing things, but if you follow a few simple rules, you'll have perfectly formatted citations.

Quoting a Poem in Your Essay

• For example, introduce a short quote like this. Frost writes, "Some say the world will end in fire."

• For example, cite two line of a poem like this: "Some say the world will end end fire, / Some say in ice."

• You should not use quotation marks with block quotes. It is not necessary because the indentation signifies that it is a quote.
• Be sure to maintain the same double spacing that you have in the rest of your paper.

Using Proper In-Text Citations

• If you mention the author's name in the sentence that introduces the quote, include the year in parentheses after the author's name, and the page number in parentheses after the end of quote. For example: In his poem "Fire and Ice," Robert Frost (1923) says, "Some say the world will end in fire." (p. 1)
• If you don't include the author's name in the sentence that introduces the quote, provide all three pieces of information, separated by commas, in parentheses after the end of the quote. For example: "Some say the world will end in fire." (Frost, 1923, p. 1)
• Parenthetical citations should always come after the punctuation of the preceding sentence.

• If you are not referring to one specific page of the poem, you may omit the page number from your parenthetical citation, although you are encouraged to provide a page number whenever possible.

• Capitalize all major words in the title of any work.
• Put quotation marks around the titles of shorter works (such as most poems).
• Italicize or underline the title of longer works (such as anthologies).

Citing a Poem in Your Works Cited

• Author's last name, Author's first name (Year of publication). Title of work: Subtitle. Location: Publisher.

• Author's last name, Author's first name (Year of publication). Title of poem. In Editor's first and last name (Eds.), Title of book (pp. page #). Location: Publisher.

• In general, if your source does not provide a specific piece of information, it is okay to omit it from the citation.
• Note that when citing multiple pages you should notate it with "pp." instead of "p."

• For a website, include the words "Retrieved from" followed by the full web address at the end of your citation.
• For an e-book, include the e-book format in square brackets directly after the title of the book (for example, [Kindle DX version]). Then include the words "Available from" followed by the website from which you retrieved the e-book at the end of your citation.

• Capitalize only the first word of the title of a book, not every word.
• Do not surround the title of a poem with quotation marks.
• Use the title References at the top of your page.
• Alphabetize your entries by the author's last name. If you have more than one source by the same author, use the date of publication to list them chronologically.
• The first line of each citation should not be indented, but all additional lines should be indented 1 ⁄ 2 inch (1.3 cm) (two spaces) from the left margin.
• Maintain the same double spacing you have throughout the rest of your paper.
• If you are providing annotations (descriptions of your sources), provide them directly beneath your citation, indented two spaces further than the second line of your citation.

Community Q&A

• If you plan on writing a lot of papers using APA format, it's a good idea to buy a print copy of the manual or pay for online access. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• APA is not the only style guide out there, so double check that your teacher wants you to use APA. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• Be sure to cite all of the sources that you quote, paraphrase, or even refer to when writing a paper so that you avoid all appearances of plagiarism. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Don’t forget that you will also have to compose your entire essay or paper according to the APA style. This includes using the APA rules regarding line and paragraph spacing, typeface, margins, etc. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://libguides.swansea.ac.uk/APA7Referencing/Poetry
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/punctuation/quotation_marks/quotation_marks_with_fiction.html
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/in_text_citations_author_authors.html
• ↑ https://penandthepad.com/cite-poem-apa-format-5072453.html
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/reference_list_basic_rules.html

About This Article

If you want to cite a poem using the APA style, include your quote from a poem in quotation marks if it's less than 40 words, and use forward slashes to indicate line breaks. To cite a longer passage, begin the quote on a new line and indent it to create a block quotation. For your in-text citation, include the author's name, year of publication, and page number, preceded by the letter "p." When it comes to the title, capitalize all major words, place short titles in quotes, and italicize longer titles. To learn how to include your citation in the works cited section of your essay, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Quoting and Citing a Poem in MLA: Tips, Steps, and Insights

You are in the right place if you have been struggling online trying to discover how to quote and cite a poem in an MLA essay. You might have heard your professor say that quoting a poem in MLA means introducing the quote and using quotation marks, as you would for any other source. But how do you do that correctly when the quote includes line breaks? Let us look at this comprehensive guide to citing a poem in an MLA paper.

 In this post, you will discover all the information you need to know to quote and cite poems correctly as per the MLA stylebook.

When to Quote a Poem

Before you learn how to quote and cite a poem, it is vital to learn when it is necessary to do so. You should only quote a poem in your essay:

1. When Absolutely Necessary

You should only quote a poem in your essay when it is necessary. Quoting lines upon lines of a poem in your essay to boost the word count will not do you much good.

Most professors will be annoyed when they notice you have done this in your essay. And this usually leads only to an average or lower grade. Therefore, quote a poem only when absolutely necessary.

You will know it is necessary to quote a poem when quoting a poem adds value to your paper. If you genuinely believe quoting a poem enhances your paper in one way or another, you should do it.

2. When You Want To Support Your Arguments

It would help if you quoted a poem to support your arguments. There are situations where you cannot write your essay correctly without quoting a poem.

For example, when you analyze a poem in your essay, you must quote it several times. This will help show the reader what you are talking about. In other words, it will help you to support your arguments.

Related Reading:

• How to use block quotes in MLA.
• How to title a movie in an essay.
• Indenting paragraphs in an academic essay.

Now that you know when to quote a poem in an essay, it is time to discover how exactly to do so. The information we share below will show you how to quote a poem in MLA.

Essential Tips to Quote a Poem in MLA

There are different rules for quoting just a single line of poetry, two or three lines, and for quoting four or more lines.

1. How to Quote a Single Line of Poetry in Your MLA Essay

Quoting a single line of poetry in an MLA essay is easy. You need to put it in double quotes. This is how you would quote a single line of anything else in your MLA essay. So nothing is challenging about it.

Putting a single line of poetry in your MLA essay without enclosing it with double quotation marks will make it difficult for your professor to know you are quoting something.

And do not for a moment think that italicizing a line of poetry can work in lieu of the double quotation marks. It cannot work since it is not how the MLA stylebook requires you to quote a single line of poetry.

Examples of how to quote a single line of poetry:

• "While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping" – Edgar Allan Poe
• "The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed" – Percy Shelley
• "Life is but an empty dream!" – Henry Longfellow

2. How to Quote Two or Three Lines of Poetry

Quoting two or three lines of poetry is a bit more complex than quoting just one. This is because two or three lines of poetry will need something to tell the reader they are moving to the next line.

So how do you do it? Write two or three lines of poetry and enclose them with double quotation marks. Then use the forward slash symbol "/" to show the transition from one line to the next. The symbol should be preceded and followed by space.

If the lines you are quoting are from two different stanzas, use the double forward slash symbol "//" to show the transition from one stanza to the next.

One important thing to remember when quoting a chunk of poetry in your essay is that you should always retain the same styling, capitalization, and punctuation as in the original poem. Do not adjust or rewrite anything to make it sound better or more correct.

Examples of how to quote two to three lines of poetry:

• "Life is real! Life is earnest! / And the grave is not its goal;" – Henry Longfellow
• "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" – Percy Shelley
• "Does it dry up / Like a raising in the sun?" – Langston Hughes

3. How to Quote Four or More Lines of Poetry

How you quote four or more lines of poetry differs from how you quote three or fewer lines of poetry. It is different because when you quote four or more lines of poetry, you must quote them as a block.

Here is how exactly to quote four or more lines of poetry. First, introduce the quote or provide the reader with some context on the quote you will unleash to them. Second, put a colon at the end of the sentence to show a quote is coming.

Third, create a line break (a new line) and press the "Tab" this will indent your quote (0.5-inch from the left margin) and distinguish it from the rest of your writing. Lastly, quote the poem you wanted to quote without adding any quotation marks.

Example 1 of how to quote four or more lines of poetry:

Langston Hughes' poem opens with a couple of rhetorical questions:

            What happens to a dream deferred?

            Does it dry up

            Like a raisin in the sun?

            Or fester like a sore-

            And then run?

Example 2 of how to quote four or more lines of poetry

Maya Angelou's inspiring poem offers words of encouragement to the downtrodden:

            You may shoot me with your words,

            You may cut me with your eyes,

            You may kill me with your hatefulness,

            But still, like air, I'll rise.

Example 3 of how to quote four or more lines of poetry

The poet John Donne, in his thought-inspiring poem, reveals the deep connection we have to humanity:

            Any man's death diminishes me,

            Because I am involved in mankind,

            And therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls;

            It tolls for thee.

You now know how exactly to quote a poem in an MLA essay. It is now to discover how to cite a poem in MLA. Citing is not the same thing as quoting. It is more complex. Check the section below to understand.

How to cite a poem in an MLA Paper or Essay

When you name, discuss, mention, or refer to a poem, it is best to cite it so that your reader can read more about it if they want to. Failure to properly cite a poem or any other work you use or discuss in your essay is wrong and is considered academic dishonesty. It will make your essay look like it is missing something and reduce your chances of getting an excellent grade (professors do not like poorly cited essays).

When citing a poem in your essay, you must cite it in-text and on the reference page.

Citing a poem in-text has a few rules that you need to follow. The most important rule is clearly stating the author's last name. The purpose of doing this is to enable the reader to quickly locate the author of the work and the associated source on your references page.

Follow the rules below to cite any poem in-text in your MLA essay properly.

A. How to cite a poem with no line numbers or page numbers

You can find a poem on a website or a published text without any lines or page numbers. The correct way to cite it is only by the author's last name. Do not count the lines or the pages manually for your in-text citation.

Example of how to cite a poem with no line numbers or page numbers

"Every man is a piece of the continent, / A part of the main." (Donne)

B. How to cite a poem with line numbers

Sometimes poems are published with line numbers on the side. This is often true in official poem collections. When you quote or talk about a poem with line numbers in your essay, your in-text citation must show the exact lines you have quoted or are talking about.

Your citation should begin with the author's last name followed by a comma and the exact lines you have quoted or are discussing. Once you cite a poem with line numbers in this manner, put line numbers only in parentheses in subsequent references to the same poem.

Example of how to cite a poem with line numbers

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, / And sorry I could travel both" (Frost, lines 1-2).

C. How to cite a poem with page numbers

A poem can be published over several pages. If a poem is published over several pages but without line numbers, you should provide an in-text citation referencing the exact page number you have quoted or are talking about.

Your citation should begin with the author's last name and the page number. Unlike in the case of line numbers, you are not supposed to put a comma between the poet's last name and the page number.

Example of how to cite a poem with page numbers

"For they sweet love remembered such wealth brings, / That, then I scorn to change my state with kings." (Shakespeare 38).

D. How to cite a poem multiple times

When you cite a poem severally in the same paragraph, you don't need to repeat the entire in-text citation over and over again. You need to put only the line number or page number you are referring to in parentheses.

Example of how to cite a poem consecutively in the same paragraph

"And be one traveler, long I stood / And looked down one as far as I could"

Citing a poem on the reference page MLA

Every poem you cite in-text should have the full citation on your references page. How you reference a poem on the references page depends on the source.

Poems can be found in many places (e.g., online, in a book, or in an anthology). The way you cite a poem you've found online is not the same you cite a poem you've found in a book.

A. How to cite a poem found online

When you find a poem online or on a website, there is a way you need to cite it. You must begin with the author's last name and then their first name. You need to follow the poet's name with the poem's name in parentheses. Check out the format below.

Online citation format:

Author's Last Name, First Name. "Title." Year of publication. Title of the website, Website Publisher, Link. Accessed day month year.

Online citation example:

Shakespeare, William. "Sonnet 29." 1609. Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45090/sonnet-29-when-in-disgrace-with-fortune-and-mens-eyes. Accessed 19 Feb. 2023.

B. How to cite a poem from a book

When you find a poem in a book, there are rules you need to follow in citing it. The first two elements of the citation (the name and the title of the poem, will be formatted the same way as when citing a poem from an online source. The other elements are different, so the formatting is a bit different. Check out the format below.

Book citation format

Author's Last Name, First Name. "Title." Book Title, Publisher. Year of publication, Page number/range.

Book citation example

Shakespeare, William. "Sonnet 29." William Shakespeare Poem Collection, Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 32.

C. How to cite a poem from an anthology

An anthology is a collection of poems from different authors. How you cite a poem from an anthology is not the same way you cite a poem from a book with poems from solely one author. Use the format below to cite a poem from an anthology.

Anthology citation format

Author's Last Name, First Name. "Title of Work."  Anthology Collection,  edited by (first name and last name), edition (if applicable), volume (if applicable), Publisher, year of anthology publication, page number or page range.

Anthology citation example:

Hughes, William. "Dark Oceans."  Collection of Modern South African Poems , edited by John Moore, Cape Town University Press, 2009, p. 77.

As we wind up this Super Guide…

If you made it this far, you are now conversant with how to quote poems in an MLA paper. You can now comfortably cite poems from different sources. We hope that the information we have shared with you should make it easy for you to quote and cite poems easily in your MLA essays.

• How to write a poem analysis essay.
• How to write an expository essay.
• How to write a rhetorical analysis essay.

If you ever find it difficult to cite a poem or any other source or evidence in your essay, you should place an order. We are an online assignment-help website with handpicked professional writers capable of correctly citing poems in MLA and all other types of essays. We are your go-to website if you have a poem analysis essay and need some help writing it. All you need to do to get a citation or referencing assistance from us is to visit our home page.

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How to Quote Poetry in an Essay

Last Updated: June 1, 2023 References

This article was co-authored by Michelle Golden, PhD . Michelle Golden is an English teacher in Athens, Georgia. She received her MA in Language Arts Teacher Education in 2008 and received her PhD in English from Georgia State University in 2015. There are 10 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 65,124 times.

Quoting poetry in your writing is a bit trickier than quoting prose. Because poetry is stylized a certain way, you try to maintain that style for your readers, though how you maintain the style differs according to whether you're using a short quote or a longer quote. After you quote parts of a poem, you'll also need to create an in-text citation and an end reference for the poem to show your readers where you found the information. The most common style to use for citations in literature essays is the style from the Modern Language Association (MLA), though you may also need to use Chicago or American Psychological Association (APA) style.

Quoting Long and Short Passages

• For instance, you could introduce your quotation in this way: As Lord Byron wrote, "...."
• Epigraphs are short quotations that go at the beginning of a paper or heading, that sort of introduce your reader to the topic of your paper.

• So if you're using the first two lines of Lord Byron's poem "She Walks in Beauty," it would look like the following quotation: As Lord Byron writes in his poem "She Walks in Beauty," "She walks in beauty like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies." [3] X Research source
• Note that you add a spaces around the slash.

• When making a longer quote, it's better to introduce it with a full sentence and a colon rather than a phrase. Also, you don't use quotation marks with a block quote.

• For MLA style, a long quote from Byron's poem would follow this format: Lord Byron begins the poem "She Walks in Beauty" with these four lines:             She walks in beauty like the night             Of cloudless climes and starry skies;             And all that's best of dark and bright             Meet in her aspect and her eyes.

• For example, if you wanted to take "in beauty" out of the first line of Byron's poem, it would look like the following quotation: "She walks ... like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies."

• For example, if you quoted the first two lines of Byron's poem, you could use it to talk about Byron's use of similes.

Creating an In-Text Citation in MLA Style

• For a short quote, use this format: As Lord Byron writes in his poem "She Walks in Beauty," "She walks in beauty like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies" (citation).
• Follow this example for a blockquote: Lord Byron begins the poem "She Walks in Beauty" with these four lines:             She walks in beauty like the night             Of cloudless climes and starry skies;             And all that's best of dark and bright             Meet in her aspect and her eyes. (citation)

• Add the name in like the following quote: The poem "She Walks in Beauty" begins with the following lines: "She walks in beauty like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies" (Byron 1-2).
• If the poem is anonymous or uncredited, such as “I Eat My Peas with Honey,” then use a shortened form of the title: ("I Eat" 1-2) [8] X Research source

• Follow this example: The poem "She Walks in Beauty" begins with the following lines: "She walks in beauty like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies" (Byron 1-2).
• If you skip a line, use a comma to separate the the numbers. For instance, if you use lines 1 and 3, it would look like this example: (Byron 1, 3).

Creating an End Reference in MLA Style

• The beginning of the citation would follow this format: Byron, George Gordon, Lord.
• If the poem's author is anonymous, start with the title of the poem.

• Continue the citation in this manner: Byron, George Gordon, Lord. "She Walks in Beauty."
• Be sure to capitalize important words in the title.

• The citation would continue in this way, since this poem is from the Poetry Foundation: Byron, George Gordon, Lord. "She Walks in Beauty." Poetry Foundation,

• This particular citation has none of these attributes, so leave them blank.

• Here's how the citation looks so far: Byron, George Gordon, Lord. "She Walks in Beauty." Poetry Foundation, Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute,

• If you were to add a date, it would look like the following citation: Byron, George Gordon, Lord. "She Walks in Beauty." Poetry Foundation, Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute, 2 August 2016,

• Here's the final citation: Byron, George Gordon, Lord. "She Walks in Beauty." Poetry Foundation, Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43844.
• Don't add "http://" or "https://" before the web address.

Creating References and In-Text Citations in Chicago and APA

• For example, with APA, the in-text citation would appear this way: "She walks in beauty like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies" (Byron 1-2).
• Just like MLA, you'll use the author's name and line numbers. However, if the poem doesn't have line numbers, you can just use an abbreviation of the title: (Byron "She Walks").

• For APA, use this format with the example from throughout this article: Byron, G. G. (1813). "She Walks in Beauty." Poetry Foundation. Retrieved from www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43844
• Note that APA uses initials rather than full first and middle names. This structure is in place to discourage gender bias.

• In this case, the footnote would look like the following example: 1. Byron, George Gordon, Lord, "She Walks in Beauty," Poetry Foundation, accessed August 2, 2016, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43844.
• You can also add a publication date ("Last modified July 2, 2016,") before the access date.

• For Chicago, use this format: Byron, George Gordon, Lord. "She Walks in Beauty." Poetry Foundation. Accessed August 2, 2016. www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43844.
• Once again, you can add a publication date ("Last modified July 2, 2016,") before the access date if it has it.

• If you need more information on these styles, review the MLA Handbook, Eighth Edition ; The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition ; the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th Edition ; or Purdue's Online Writing Lab (OWL), which has information on all three.

Expert Q&A

• Always proofread quotations. Double-check that your quotations are accurate and that you have not made any changes to the text when you transcribed it into your paper. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://www.georgetowncollege.edu/eng/resources/how-to-quote-poetry-in-english-papers/
• ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/03/
• ↑ https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43844
• ↑ https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42908/i-eat-my-peas-with-honey
• ↑ http://www.math.grinnell.edu/~simpsone/Connections/Writing/Quote/quote2.html
• ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/22/
• ↑ https://www.easybib.com/guides/citation-guides/mla-8/mla-7-vs-mla-8/
• ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/
• ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/717/05/

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How to Cite a Poem in Harvard Referencing

• 4-minute read
• 30th August 2020

If you’re writing about poetry in an essay, knowing how to reference a poem is vital. But how does this work? In this post, we explain how to cite a poem in Harvard referencing , including both in the text and in the reference list.

‘Harvard referencing’ is another name for parenthetical author–date referencing . This might sound technical, but all it means in practice is that you cite sources by giving the author’s name and a year of publication in brackets. We could cite a poem like this, for instance:

‘The Fly’ is notable for its unusual choice of subject (Blake, 1794).

Here, we’re citing ‘The Fly’ by William Blake using its original publication date. We would then give full source details in the reference list .

Quoting Poetry

Quoting poetry can be a little different to quoting prose in two respects:

• The kind of pinpoint citation you include.
• How you present quoted poetry on the page.

In terms of pinpoint citations, you may want to use line numbers rather than page numbers, especially if the version you’re quoting includes them.

In terms of presentation, meanwhile, if you’re quoting a single line from a poem, you would quote it like you would any other source:

Donne (1633, line 3) writes, ‘It sucked me first, and now sucks thee’.

But for two or three lines, you will also need to use a forward slash to mark the line breaks. For example:

The poem begins ‘Mark but this flea, and mark in this,/How little that which thou deniest me is’ (Donne, 1633, lines 1-2).

And for longer passages, you should set the poem out as it is in the source:

In the final stanza, Donne (1633, lines 18-22) writes:

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Cruel and sudden, hast thou since Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence? Wherein could this flea guilty be, Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?

This helps to preserve the flow of the poem you are quoting.

Poems in a Harvard Reference List

The correct format for a poem in a Harvard reference list depends on where you found it. The three most common formats are as follows:

• For a poem published as a standalone book , reference it as a book .
• If the poem is part of a collection or anthology of work by various poets, reference it as a chapter from an edited book .
• For a poem found online , reference it as a page from a website .

You can see examples of Harvard-style references for a few poems below:

Blake, W. (1794) ‘The Fly’, Poets.org [Online]. Available at https://poets.org/poem/fly (Accessed 17 July 2020).

Donne, J. (1633) ‘The Flea’, in Ferguson, M. W., Salter, M. J. and Stallworthy, J. (eds) The Norton Anthology of Poetry , New York, W.W. Norton (this edition 1996), p. 12.

Eliot, T. S. (1922) The Wasteland , London, Faber & Faber (this edition 2019).

Note that, where relevant, we’ve included the date of the edition (or the anthology in which a poem is reproduced) as well as the original date of publication. This is to help the reader find the version you’ve used.

Harvard Variations and Proofreading

For this post, we use a version of Harvard referencing based on the Open University guide [PDF] . However, the exact rules for citing a poem in Harvard referencing may depend on the version of the system you’re using, so make sure to check your style guide if you have one.

And if you want to be extra sure your written work is error free, including your referencing, it pays to have it proofread! Why not submit a free sample document today and find out how our expert editors can help you ensure clarity and consistency in your writing?

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• Writing Tips

How to Cite a Poem in Chicago Footnote Referencing

4-minute read

• 17th March 2020

If you’re studying literature, there’s a good chance you’ll write about poetry in your work . But how do you cite a poem? Here, we’ll look at how to format the footnote citation and reference list entry for a poem in Chicago referencing.

Footnote Citations for Poems

Chicago footnote referencing, as set out in the Chicago Manual of Style , uses superscript numbers in text (e.g., 1 ,  2 ,  3 ) that point to a footnote citation. What that footnote citation looks like depends on where you found the poem:

• For a poem published as a standalone book or in an anthology with a single author, you would use the standard book format .
• If a poem was published in a periodical, you would use the magazine/newspaper format or the journal article format (for periodicals with volume and issue numbers).
• For poems published as part of an anthology or collection with several authors, you would cite it as a chapter from an edited book.
• For poems found online, cite them as a page on a website.

The two most common formats are probably the edited book and website formats. We will look at these in more detail below.

Citing a Poem from an Edited Book

If a poem is from an edited book, such as an anthology , the footnote format is:

n. Author name, “Title of poem,” in Book , ed. Editor(s) name (City: Publisher, Year of Publication), page number(s).

In practice, then, we would cite a poem from an edited book as follows:

1. Frank O’Hara, “Meditations in an Emergency,” in The Poetry of Crisis, ed. Donald Allen (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995), 197–198.

And to cite the same poem later in the document, you can use a shortened footnote format (i.e., either just the author’s surname for consecutive citations or the author’s name and the title for non-consecutive citations).

Citing a Poem from a Website

If you found a poem on a website, the footnote citation would look like this:

n. Author name, “Title of poem,” Publishing Organization or Name of Website, publication/last modified/accessed date, URL.

If the website provides a publication or modification date, then use this in the footnote. Otherwise, you can include a date of access instead:

2. Anne Carson, “The Glass Essay,” Poetry Foundation, accessed January 29, 2020. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48636/the-glass-essay.

As above, you can use a shortened footnote format for repeat citations.

Quoting a Poem in Chicago Referencing

When you quote a poem in Chicago referencing, you can also give line or stanza numbers after the page numbers in a citation. For instance, if we quoted lines 14 and 15 of a poem, we would cite it like this:

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3. Frank O’Hara, “Meditations in an Emergency,” in The Poetry of Crisis, ed. Donald Allen (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995), 197–198, lines 14–15.

To quote whole stanzas, moreover, use “st.” instead of “lines.”

Poems in a Chicago Reference List: Edited Book

When it comes to creating the reference list entry for a poem, the format again depends on where the poem is published. This will be similar to the first footnote citation, except you should give the author’s surname first.

Here, for example, we have the format for a poem from an edited book:

Author Surname, First Name. “Title of Poem.” In Book , edited by Editor(s) name, page number(s). City: Publisher, Year of Publication.

As you can see, we also replace “ed.” with “edited by,” move the page number in front of the publication information, and the punctuation is different.

The bibliography entry for the poem from the anthology cited above would be:

O’Hara, Frank. “Meditations in an Emergency,” in The Poetry of Crisis, edited by Donald Allen, 197–198. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995.

Poems in a Chicago Reference List: Online

For a poem published online, the format is as follows:

Author Surname, First Name. “Title of Page.” Publishing Organization or Name of Website. Publication/last modified/accessed date. URL.

The poem from the website above would thus look like this:

Carson, Anne. “The Glass Essay.” Poetry Foundation. Accessed January 29, 2020. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48636/the-glass-essay.

So, whether the poem you’re citing is online or from an anthology, you can now cite it in Chicago footnote referencing. And if you’d like an expert to check your references, why not upload a document for proofreading ?

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How do I format a quotation of song lyrics?

Format a quotation of song lyrics the same way you would format a quotation of poetry. If the quotation consists of fewer than four lines, run it into the text, placing quotation marks around the lines and separating the lines from each other with a forward slash with a space on either side of it. 

Bob Dylan famously sang that “[t]he answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind / The answer is blowin’ in the wind.” Work Cited Dylan, Bob. “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Bob Dylan , 2018, www.bobdylan.com/songs/blowin-wind/.

If the quotation consists of four or more lines, set the quoted lines apart from the text as an extract.

In “Blowin’ in the Wind,” Bob Dylan asks: How many roads must a man walk down Before you call him a man? Yes, ’n’ how many seas must a white dove sail Before she sleeps in the sand?

Dylan, Bob. “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Bob Dylan , 2018, www.bobdylan.com/songs/blowin-wind/.