poem quote essay

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How to Quote and Cite a Poem in an Essay Using MLA Format

Last Updated: August 3, 2023 Fact Checked

Template and Examples

Quoting in essays, citing in essays, citing in a works cited.

This article was co-authored by Jamie Korsmo, PhD . Jamie Korsmo is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Georgia State University. There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. 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 1,319,116 times.

Navigating the MLA Handbook can be pretty overwhelming; there are so many rules that regulate the way we can quote and cite poetry in MLA format in our own writing. Improper quoting and citing can even be considered a form of plagiarism. Here is a comprehensive look at the most important things you need to know to make your English teacher happy with how you quote from and cite poetry in your papers.

• Example sentence: Robert Frost’s poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” discusses the idea of solitude versus living in a world of other people and obligations.

• Here is an example of several lines of poetry from Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”: The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep.
• Here is an example of how to insert several lines of poetry into an essay: In "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," Frost writes, “The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, / But I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep."

• Example: Robert Frost writes about solitude and man’s relationship with nature:                     Whose woods these are I think I know.                     His house is in the village, though;                     He will not see me stopping here                     To watch his woods fill up with snow. (1-4)

• Example: Robert Frost discusses solitude and a desire to forget obligations when he writes, "The woods are lovely...but I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep" (13-15).

Tip: If an ellipsis covers a line break, do not worry about including a backslash inside the ellipsis, as in the above example. But if you continue on without an ellipsis, include the backslashes that indicate line breaks.

• Example: Robert Frost discusses solitude when he writes,                     Whose woods these are I think I know.                     ………………………………………….                     He will not see me stopping here                     To watch his woods fill up with snow. (1-4)

• If you don't take these steps correctly, then you aren't giving credit where it's due to the original author and your teacher may consider this plagiarism.

• Example: In "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," Frost writes, “The woods are lovely, dark, and deep / But I have promises to keep / And miles to go before I sleep” (13-15).
• Example: The notion of solitude appears in many notable poems including the famous lines, "The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, / But I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep" (Frost 13-15).

• Example of one quoted word: Robert Frost uses the word “sleep” to imply fantasies about solitude and perhaps death (15).
• Example of multiple words: Robert Frost uses a variety of words and phrases such as “frozen” (7), “darkest evening” (8), and “before I sleep” (15) to imply thoughts of solitude and the desire to not return to his obligations.

Tip: Just make sure that you include the proper line numbers, whatever the form. If you are citing a longer section of the poem, you will include more line numbers (12-32). If you cite two separate sections using an ellipsis, indicate the range of the sections with a comma separating them (11-15, 18-21).

• Example of citing a short quote: In "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," Frost writes, “The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, / But I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep” (13-15).
• Example of citing a long quote: Robert Frost writes about solitude and man’s relationship with nature:                     Whose woods these are I think I know.                     His house is in the village, though;                     He will not see me stopping here                     To watch his woods fill up with snow. (1-4)

• Example: The notion of solitude appears in many notable poems including the famous lines, "The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, / But I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep" (Frost, "Stopping by the Woods" 13-15). This idea is mirrored in the lines "And both that morning equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black" (Frost, "The Road Not Taken" 11-12).

• Example: Frost, Robert. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” The Poetry of Robert Frost. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston Inc., 1969. 224-225. Print.

• Example: Frost, Robert. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” The Poetry Foundation. n.d. Web. 6 January 2014.

Tip: You do not need to add the URL of the website as they change often and are generally long and confusing, and URLs are not required in MLA format. [10] X Trustworthy Source Purdue Online Writing Lab Trusted resource for writing and citation guidelines Go to source

• Example (note this is a made up anthology): Frost, Robert. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” The Little Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Marie Shier. 3rd ed. San Francisco: Some Publisher, 2010. 21-22. Print.

• Frost, Robert. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” The Poetry of Robert Frost. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston Inc., 1969. 224-225. Print.
• ---. “The Road Not Taken.” The Poetry of Robert Frost. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston Inc., 1969. 227-228. Print.

Community Q&A

• When writing about poetry in your essay, use the present tense. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Brackets are not needed around ellipses. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

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• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_formatting_quotations.html
• ↑ https://stlcc.edu/student-support/academic-success-and-tutoring/writing-center/writing-resources/mla-in-text-citation-sample-essay-8th-edition.aspx
• ↑ https://style.mla.org/line-numbers-in-text-citation/
• ↑ https://otis.libguides.com/mla_citations/in-text
• ↑ https://www.monmouth.edu/resources-for-writers/documents/mla-citing-poetry.pdf/
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_works_cited_electronic_sources.html
• ↑ https://libguides.uww.edu/mla/poem
• ↑ https://uwcchina.libguides.com/c.php?g=830919&p=6639313

About This Article

If you use a quote from a poem in an MLA-format essay, place the line numbers of the poem in parentheses right after the closing quotation marks, with the closing punctuation right behind the parentheses. If you mention the name of the author when you are introducing the text, you do not have to include the author’s name in the parenthesis, but you do if you have not already stated the name of the author. If the quote is more than 3 lines long, indent 10 spaces from the left margin when you type the poem. To learn about how to include a citation for a poem on the Works Cited page of your essay, continue reading the article! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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MLA Formatting Quotations

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MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities. This resource, updated to reflect the MLA Handbook (8 th ed.), offers examples for the general format of MLA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the Works Cited page.

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:

• EXPLORE Random Article

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 65,108 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

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• ↑ 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 Quote Poetry in MLA Referencing

4-minute read

• 10th December 2019

Writing about Robert Frost? Scribbling about Shakespeare? Then make sure you know how to quote poetry . This is not quite the same as quoting prose, but the rules are easy to understand once you know them. Here, for example, is how to quote and reference a poem in MLA referencing .

How to Quote Poetry in the Text

The format for quoting poetry in MLA depends on how much you are quoting. If it is three lines or fewer, you can quote it in line with the rest of your text. However, you will need to include a forward slash to indicate a line break (or a double slash for a stanza break). For example:

In “For E.J.P.,” he writes “I once believed a single line / in a Chinese poem could change / forever how blossoms fell” (Cohen 1-3).

As you can see, we also cite the poem after we have quoted it. The citation format here follows standard MLA conventions , but you should typically use line numbers rather than page numbers.

For quotes of more than three lines, set it on a new line, without quote marks, and indented from the left margin (like a block quote). For instance:

The poem ends as follows:

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. (Frost 15-20)

Try to make the layout of the poem as close as possible to the original.

Poem Titles: Italics or Quote Marks?

Another question is how to present poem titles on the page. This depends on the poem’s length. The MLA system suggests:

• For shorter poems published as part of a longer work, use quote marks.
• For longer poems published as a standalone book, use italics.

This applies when you name a poem in your writing, when listing poems in the Works Cited list, and when using titles within citations (e.g., if you are citing two sources by the same person ). So make sure to be consistent!

Poems in a Works Cited List

Finally, we’ll look at how to list poems in your Works Cited list. For single poems published as a standalone book, this is simple: just list it as you would any other book . The same is true when citing a poetry anthology with a single author (though you may need to name the editor, too).

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But for a poem from a mixed anthology (i.e., one containing poems by several authors), the format is like referencing a chapter from an edited book :

Surname, First Name. “Title of Poem.” Title of Anthology , edited by Editor Name(s), Publisher, Year, Page number(s).

Note that we use the actual page numbers for the poem within the container volume here, not line numbers. We would therefore list a print poem in a Works Cited list along the following lines:

Cohen, Leonard. “For E.J.P.” 20 th -Century Poets: An Anthology , edited by G. Edwards, Victor Gollancz Ltd, 2012, pp. 59-60.

For a poem found online, you can reference it as if it were a web page:

Surname, First Name. “Title of Poem.” Title of Site/Publishing Organization , date of publication (if available), URL. Date accessed (if required).

Remember that the date here should be when the poem was published online, not when it was originally written. In practice, then, the Works Cited list entry for a poem found online would look like this:

Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken.” PoemHunter , 20 Oct. 2016, www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-road-not-taken. (Accessed Oct. 19, 2018).

If you are unsure whether to include a date of access, check your style guide or ask your supervisor/professor. And if you’d like someone to check the clarity and consistency of your referencing, our expert editors can help .

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