Don’t-Miss Database: Columbia Granger’s World of Poetry

Post contributed by Arianne Hartsell-Gundy, Head, Humanities and Social Sciences and Librarian for Literature

The Columbia Granger’s World of Poetry was originally a print index (first edited by Edith Granger in 1904) with thirteen editions. Though the online resource has many enhanced features, you can still search by poet, title, and first line. The word “world” in the title is apt because the poets represented span many countries.

Why Should You Use This?

This database is a reliable resource for locating a specific poem. Though there are great online resources like the Poetry Foundation and the Academy of American Poets that you can also use, some of what you will find online isn’t accurate or is incomplete. There are over 300,000 poems in full text and 450,000 citations in Granger’s. These numbers mean that frequently you can read the poem right there.

If the full text of the poem isn’t available, you can learn where it was published. You can then locate that publication in Duke Libraries. As shown in the example below, the poem “America I Do Not Call Your Name Without Hope” is available in the book Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness in our collection.

Cool Features

Since I firmly believe that hearing a poem read out loud enhances the experience, one of my favorite features is the Listening Room. Most of the poems included are classics, but you can listen to contemporary poets or actors. For example, you can listen to Rita Dove read Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 43. I also like the Compare Poems feature where you can look at two poems side-by-side.

Database Tips

In many cases the quick search box for “poet” and “poem” is sufficient, but the advanced search options are useful if you don’t already have a specific poem in mind.

Similar Resources

Columbia Granger’s World of Poetry is one of the best tools for locating a specific poem, but we do have full text poetry collections such as African American Poetry, American Poetry, and English Poetry!

Questions?

Contact Arianne Hartsell-Gundy, Head, Humanities and Social Sciences and Librarian for Literature.