Quoting Poetry within a Paper using MLA Documentation

1. Quoting Poetry within a Paperusing MLA Documentation (MLA Handbook, 6th Edition – with updates from Mr. B) My website has this information too.

2. Poetry • If you quote part or all of a single line of verse that does not require special emphasis, put it in quotation marks within your text. You may also incorporate two or three lines in this way, using a slash with a space on each side ( / ) to separate them: Heaney directly compares poetry writing to the digging his ancestors did: "Between my finger and my thumb / The squat pen rests. / I'll dig with it" (29-31).

3. Quoting 3 or more lines of poetry. If you quote three or more lines of poetry, you need to block indent the poem ten spaces from the left margin. The author, David Bottoms, is wise to the fact that men often use sports to communicate their feelings. The persona of the poem, however, takes years to realize his father's message. Once he realizes the importance of sports to their relationship, he sends a message back to his father: and I never learned what you were laying down. Like a hand brushed across the bill of a cap, let this be the sign I'm getting a grip on the sacrifice. (20-23)

4. If the spatial arrangement of the original lines, including indentation and spacing within and between them, is unusual, reproduce it as accurately as possible. E. E. Cummings concludes the poem with this vivid description of a carefree scene, reinforced by the carefree form of the lines themselves: it’s spring and the goat-footed balloonMan whistles far and wee (16-24)

5. Do not use ellipses if you start quoting a poem midline. If you want to start quoting in the middle of a line of poetry, just add indentions to indicate the text is only a partial line. Do not use ellipses points (. . .). In a poem on Thomas Hardy, Molly Holden recalls her encounter with a “young dog fox” one morning: I remember he glanced at me in just that way, independent and unabashed, the handsome sidelong look that went round and about but never directly me my eyes, for that would betray his soul. He was not being sly, only careful. (43-48)

6. If you remove words from the middle of a line, DO use an ellipses to represent the missing text. As a boy, the persona visited his grandfather in the fields: "Once I carried him milk. . . . / He straightened up / To drink it" (19-21). ORIGINAL: Than any other man on Toner's bog.Once I carried him milk in a bottleCorked sloppily with paper. He straightened upTo drink it, then fell to right awayNicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods

7. Online Works CitedEditor, author, or compiler name (if available). Name of Site. Version number. Name of institution/organization affiliated with the site (sponsor or publisher), date of resource creation (if available). Medium of publication. Date of access. • Online: Frost, James. "Strawberries in a Field."  Literature Resource Center. Alabama Virtual Library. WEB. 15 March 2012. Keats, John. “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Poetical Work. 1884. Bartleby.com: Great Books Online. Ed. Steven van Leeuwen. 2002. WEB. 5 January 2013.