How to Cite a Poem in a Text
- 1). Quote three lines or less of a poem by using quotation marks. Use a slash to mark breaks between lines. Include the line numbers in parentheses after the quotation. For example, three lines of a poem would be cited as follows: "A little seed, which sown in English ground/ Did wondrous snow of starry blossoms bear/ And spread rich odours through our spring-tide air" (20-21).
- 2). Block indent quotes containing four or more lines of poetry ten spaces on the left margin. Such a citation would look like the following:
To that gaunt House of Art which lacks for naught
Of all the great things men have saved from Time,
The withered body of a girl was brought
Dead ere the world's glad youth had touched its prime. (14-16) - 3). Add ellipses in the middle of lines where there is missing text, as in the following example.
"While the hot sun blazed.../ A cooling wind crept from the land of snows" (18). - 4). List the line numbers in parentheses of single words or phrases from a poem, such as: "Oscar Wilde relies on dark imagery such as "withered" (1), "dead" (1), "pale" (3) and "death" (5).
- 5). Quote single words within poems by including the line numbers at the end of the sentence. For instance: "Wilde uses words such as "death" to invoke dark imagery (5)."
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