List of poetry collections

A poetry collection is often a compilation of several poems by one poet to be published in a single volume or chapbook. A collection can include any number of poems, ranging from a few (e.g. the four long poems in T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets) to several hundred poems (as is often seen in collections of haiku). Typically the poems included in single volume of poetry, or a cycle of poems, are linked by their style or thematic material. Most poets publish several volumes of poetry through the course of their life while other poets publish one (e.g. Walt Whitman's lifelong expansion of Leaves of Grass).

The cover of T. S. Eliot's Prufrock and Other Observations, published in 1917, a collection of twelve poems including "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" referenced in the title

The notion of a "collection" differs in definition from volumes of a poet's "collected poems", "selected poems" or from a poetry anthology. Typically, a volume entitled "Collected Poems" is a compilation by a poet or an editor of a poet's work that is often both published and previously unpublished, drawn over a set span of years of the poet's work, or the entire poet's life, that represents a more complete or definitive edition of the poet's work.[1] Comparatively, a volume titled "selected poems" often includes a small but not definitive selection of poems by a poet or editor drawn from several of the poet's collections.[2] A poetry anthology differs in concept because it draws together works from multiple poets chosen by the anthology's editor.

By title in alphabetical order

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Because there is often confusion as to what constitutes a "collection", the list below only includes single volumes of poetry that were published at the direction of the author as a stand-alone collection and not any compiled editions of "collected works" or "selected works."

Titles: A–C

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A Lume Spento, by Ezra Pound (1908)

Titles: D–F

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Titles: G–J

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First edition cover of Howl and Other Poems (1956), by Allen Ginsberg

Titles: K–M

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The cover page of the 1860-61 edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass printed by the Boston firm of Thayer and Eldridge

Titles: N–P

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Titles: Q–S

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First edition of Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror (1975), by John Ashbery

Titles: T–V

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Titles: W–Z

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Titles beginning with numbers

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Titles beginning with symbols

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ Mills, Billy. "Do collected poems provide a complete account of an author? As well as providing an unwelcome memento mori, they can obscure as much as they reveal about a poet's work" from The Guardian (20 July 2009). Retrieved 21 May 2013.
  2. ^ Kilgore-Caradec, Jennifer, and Aji, Hélène. Selected Poems From Modernism to Now. (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012). This work was the result of a March 2008 colloquium at Université de Caen Archived 2 July 2013 at archive.today.
  3. ^ "Collective Amnesia".
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