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MLA 9th Edition Style Guide: Poetry

This guide will assist you in formatting in-text citations and a Works Cited list in the current MLA style.

Poetry

Quoted poetry of a line or less can be added within your text. Use 1 forward slash (/) to indicate a break in a line and 2 forward slashes (//) to indicate a break in a stanza.

Example of quoted poem with a line break

Reflecting on the “incident” in Baltimore, Cullen concludes, “Of all the things that happened there / That’s all that I remember.”

Example of quoted poem with a stanza break

The Tao te ching, in David Hinton’s translation, says that the ancient masters were “so deep beyond knowing / we can only describe their appearance: // perfectly cautious, as if crossing winter streams. . . .”

For a block quotation, take into account the following:

  • Use the block quotation if there are more than 3 lines of verse
  • indent the verse half an inch from left margin
  • Quotation marks should not be added unless they are present in the original verse. 
  • if the layout of the lines of verse are unusual, try to reproduce them as accurately as possible

 

Block verse reproducing indents

In E. E Cummings “I Have Found What You Are Like”, the poet compares a woman smiling with the rain

i have found what you are like the rain. (Who feathers frightened fields with the superior dust-of-sleep. wields … (lines 1-4)