Quick Search

When you first enter The Columbia Granger’s World of Poetry you will be at the Home Page. There are Quick Search boxes at the left of the page. On all the following pages the Quick Search boxes will appear at the top of the page.

Searching by Poet

To search for a poet, enter the poet’s name in the box, labeled “Poet.” Enter the first and/or last name (in any order). The search results are organized by poet name, in alphabetical order. Click on the poet’s name to view a list of poems by that poet.

Searching by Poem

To search by title, enter the poem’s title in the box labeled “Poem.” On the following search results pages the titles are in alphabetical order. If you entered “Fern Hill,” Dylan Thomas’s poem is listed after “Epistle from Fern Hill,” and before “From New Lodge to Fern Hill.” Articles are discounted in the alphabetization, so if you search for “The Retreat” you will find your poem towards the end of the page, at the “R”s. If you want to search an exact phrase, you should use quotation marks, and if you wish to search just part of a word, you should use the asterisk as a wildcard, ie, “Metamorph*”. If you remember only part of a title, you can enter those words you remember. If you do not get results from your search, try changing the punctuation or word spacing. For instance, if you used current spelling for Marianne Moore's "To a Steam Roller" your search term would have been "To a Steamroller," which would not yield results. Trying separating or hyphenating words if there are no results.

 

Searching by Poet Name and Poem Title

If you wish to see fewer results, you can perform a combination search, filling in both Poet and Poem boxes. If you type “Henry Vaughan” into the Poet box, and “The Retreat” into the Poem box, Vaughan’s poem “The Retreat” is the one result displayed.

 

Searching by First Line and Poem Text

When you enter a title or line in the search box for poem, the default search is by poem title. In the left-hand box on the search results page you have the choice to change the search by clicking on “First Line” or “Full Text.” However, if you entered a search with no title results, a first line search is automatically conducted. Similarly, if you entered a line from a poem for which there were no matches in titles or first lines, the poem text would be displayed after the first search. If you want an exact match for your line or phrase of text in full text searches you should enclose the phrase in quotation marks.

If you’ve entered a very broad search, that will have results in titles, first lines, and full text, such as “Roses,” in the left-hand box you can click on “First Line” to see the results of “roses” in first lines, or “Full Text,” to see the results of “roses” in the full text of poems, once you’ve seen the results as a title search.

If you remember only part of a line, enter those words you remember.

Example: Poem: “two were one.”

Search result: Anne Bradstreet’s “To My Dear and Loving Husband” (first line: “If ever two were one, then surely we”).

 

Search Results Page in Quick Search

Once you have searched for a poem or a poet the search results are in alphabetical order for title and first line searches, and by relevance for text searches. If an entry has full text, there will be an indicator directly below the entry: [text]. Click on the poem title to read the text. If there is commentary, a critical essay in History and Criticism, or audio, these are also indicated below the entry. To read a commentary or critical essay, click on the poem title and then click on the “Commentary” or “History and Criticism” link at the top right of the page. To hear audio, click on the poem title and then click on “Audio” at the top right of the page.

Poet biographies are indicated near the poet name [bio]. Click on [bio] for the biography. Click on the poet name for a list of all the poems by that author indexed in Granger’s.

The box on the left of the page will show how many results were returned, and will give the option to search by first line or text if the initial search was a title search. Click on Title, First Line, or Full Text for the relevant search.