20th Century African American Poets: Selected Resources

This handout is compiled by Monica White and is related to an assignment in Margaret Shannon's English 2 course. It is designed to help you begin your research at the LAC Library and on the World Wide Web. If you need further assistance, please consult a librarian at the Reference Desk during library hours.

Contents: 
Find Reference Books | Find Books to Check Out | Find Articles | Find Web Sites | Cite Your Sources



FIND REFERENCE BOOKS

The following reference books, shelved in the Reference Room, are critical works on the genre of poetry. Some of the works cited below have similar titles for other literary genres, including the novel, drama, and short story.

Critical Survey of Poetry, English Language Series. 8 vols. Ref PR 502 .C85 1992
Arranged alphabetically by author’s last name, this collection of essays places the poet's opus in a critical context and provides annotated bibliographies to direct readers to other sources about the poets and their works.

The Explicator. 58 vols. Ref PR 1 .E9
Explicates English-language poems.

Masterplots II, Poetry Series. 9 vols. Ref PN 1110.6 .M37 1998
Contains explanations and analyses of meaning, forms, and devices of commonly studied poems in English. Arrangement is alphabetical by title of text.

Poetry Criticism. 35 vols. Ref PN 1010 .P62
Provides excerpts of critical texts.

Poetry for Students. 11 vols. Ref PN 1101 .P64
Presents the text of poems, analysis, poet biographies, context, and criticism of frequently anthologized poems in English.


Other useful reference books related to literary criticism and biography

African American literary criticism
African American Literary Criticism Ref PS 153 .N5 A33 1999
American Ethnic Writers. 2 vols. Ref PS153.M56 A414 2000
American Poetry Since World War II Ref PS 323.5 .A5
Harlem Renaissance: a Gale Critical Companion Ref PS 153 .N5 H245 2003
Harlem Renaissance and Beyond Ref PS 153 .N5 R65 1990
Masterpieces of African American Literature Ref PS153 .N5 M264 1992
Masterplots II, African American Series Ref PS 153 .N5 M2645 1994
The Oxford Companion to African American Literature Ref PS 153 .N5 O96 1997

Biography
African American Writers Ref PS 153 .N5 A344
American National Biography Bio Ref CT 213 .A68 1999
Contemporary Authors Bio Ref Z 1224 .C58
Current Biography Bio Ref CT 100 .C8
Dictionary of World Biography, The 20th Century. 3 vols. Bio Ref CT 104 .D54
Encyclopedia of World Biography. 20 vols. Bio Ref CT 103 .E56 1998
Notable Black American Men Bio Ref E185.86 .N68 1999
Notable Black American Women. 2 vols. Bio Ref E 185.96 .N68

Feminist literary criticism
American Women Writers. 5 vols. Ref PS 147 .A4
Cambridge Guide to Women’s Writing in English Ref PR 111 .S24 1999
Feminist Writers Ref PN 451 .F46 1996
Masterplots II, Women’s Literature Series Ref PN 471 .M37 1995
Modern American Women Writers Ref PS 151 .M54 1990
The Oxford Companion to Women’s Writing in the United States Ref PS 147 .O94 1995

Specialized dictionaries and encyclopedias
American Writers. 13 vols. Ref PS 129 .A55
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms Ref PN 41 .C67 1990
A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. 4th ed. Ref PN 41 .C83 1998
Encyclopedia of Literature Ref PN 41 .M42 1995
A Glossary of Literary Terms. 7th ed. Ref PN 41 .A184 1999
A Handbook of Literature Ref PN 41 .H6 1992
A Multicultural Dictionary of Literary Terms Ref PN 41 .C28 1999
The Poet’s Dictionary Ref PN 44.5 .P3 1989
Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics Ref PN 1021 .N39 1993

Print indexes
Essay and General Literature Index Index Ref AI 3 .E752
Humanities Index Index Ref AI 3 .H85
MLA International Bibliography. (Note: An online version is available, but the Library does not subscribe to it at this time.) Ref Z 7006 .M64. 1963-1991


FIND BOOKS TO CHECK OUT

The Library’s online catalog, called Voyager, indexes books, pamphlets, and other material by subject, author, title, keyword, and call number. By searching Voyager, you may identify author biographies, critical texts, and literary texts.

To search Voyager by subject, enter your search term (if it’s an author’s name, remember to enter the last name first), then click on "subject search" in the pull-down menu on the right side of the screen.

Hughes, Langston [Subject Search]
Hughes, Langston, 1902-1967 Biography [Subject Search]
Angelou, Maya [Subject Search]
American poetry Afro-American authors [Subject Search]

To narrow your search to literary criticism on a particular poet, enter the following sample subheading:
Hughes, Langston, 1902-1967 Criticism and interpretation [Subject Search]

Keyword searching allows you to search by descriptive words.
+black +poets [Keyword Search]


Since LBCC Library has a partnership agreement with CSULB, you may check out books from the University Library. To identify books, search CSULB's online catalog, called Coast, which is accessible over the Web at http://coast.library.csulb.edu.


FIND ARTICLES

The Library subscribes to a number of online databases, which are accessible over the World Wide Web, from remote computers or those located in the Library. These databases index and abstract articles, and in some cases, provide the full text, enabling you to print a copy at a cost of $.10 per page. Alternatively, you may e-mail a copy of the article to your e-mail address, if you have one, and print it later at home.

The databases that are perhaps the most useful for your assignment are Literature Research Center, Biography Resource Center, and ProQuest. To access the Library’s online databases, first point your browser to the Library’s homepage at http://lib.lbcc.edu. Click on the button labeled "Online Databases." You will see a list of databases available for searching. Click on the database you want to search. If you are accessing the databases remotely from your home or office computer, you will be prompted for a user name and password. You may obtain a list of the current user names and passwords from a librarian at the Reference Desk.

To become proficient in database searching, the librarians recommend that you attend the free, drop-in workshops, offered on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, from 2 to 3 pm in Room L109 (Research Center West). There, you will receive individual instruction and hands-on practice.

Literature Resource Center (LRC)
This database contains full-text biographical and critical information about authors, literary movements, themes, and genres. Once you have selected Literature Resource Center from the list of available databases, click on the button labeled "Authenticate." You will see a list of GaleNet databases. Once more, click on Literature Resource Center.

There are many ways to search this database. For the purpose of your assignment you may first want to consult the encyclopedia of literature to obtain a definition of the term, "black aesthetic movement." To do so, click on the tab labeled ?Encyclopedia of Literature,? then type in your search term, "black aesthetic movement." You will retrieve an entry from the Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature, explaining this movement.

Next, you may want to search for information about a particular poet. At the LRC homepage, type in the poet’s name in the box labeled "Author Search," and click on the search button.

Sample author searches
Sonia Sanchez [author search]
Nikki Giovanni [author search]
Audre Lorde [author search]
Jordan, June [author search]

After entering your search, the database will display biographical information about the poet you entered, as well as a list of critical articles. For the full text of an article, click on its title.
To find scholarly articles providing literary criticism about the poet’s work, click on the tab labeled "Literary Criticism, Articles, & Work Overview."
To identify Web sites devoted to the poet, click on the tab labeled "Additional Resources."
To identify scholarly articles about a particular poem, try the Title search. From the LRC homepage, click on "Title," enter the title of the poem, enter the name of the poet, then click the "Search" button.

Sample title search
This Life [Exact title]
Dove, Rita [Start of last name]


Biography Resource Center (BRC)
BRC provides access to biographical information, full-text articles, and Web sites. To search BRC, simply enter the name of the poet you are researching, then click on the type of information you want to obtain.
Sample search
June Jordan


ProQuest
ProQuest indexes literature published in newspapers, magazines, and journals. This database is organized into collections of publications related to particular areas of focus. To focus your search on literary criticism, you may click on "Collections" from the main menu, and then select "Humanities Module."

The basic search allows you to search for keywords and combine keywords with the following connecting words (known as Boolean operators): AND, OR, NOT.

Sample basic search
Hughes and Weary Blues

The guided search allows you to use fields to focus your search on a specific piece of information. Sample fields are subject, author, and publication name.

Same guided searches
Dove, Rita [Personal Name]
literary criticism [Subject]


FIND WEB SITES

Several useful Web sites, related to literature, are accessible from the Library's homepage at http://lib.lbcc.edu. Click on "Internet Resources," then click on "Literature." You will see a list of relevant sites. Since the list contains hypertext links, simply click on the site you want to visit. (Note: Information on the Web is extremely dynamic, and some of the links may be "dead"--that is, they may no longer work.)

Librarians' Index to the Internet (LII) is an annotated subject directory of Internet Resources. To identify relevant resources, access this site at URL http://www.lii.org, then click on "Literature" and select a topic from the list, or enter your own search.

Google is a powerful search engine, used to search 2 billion Web pages. To access Google, go to http://www.google.com. To enter a query, type in descriptive words and press "enter," or click on the Google search button. Since Google is designed to retrieve pages that include all of your research terms, there is no need to include "and" between them. Following is a sample Google search:

When selecting additional Web sites for research, consult Thinking Critically about Discipline-based WWW Resources. This page, authored by UCLA librarian Esther Grassian, presents an excellent set of criteria for evaluating the authority and reliability of Web sites.


CITE YOUR SOURCES
Remember to list the sources used in your research in a bibliography or works-cited page following a documentation style, such as MLA (Modern Language Association) or APA (American Psychological Association). The most up-to-date guides for citing Web pages and other electronic sources in footnotes and bibliographies are on the Web, and they are accessible from the Library's homepage at http://lib.lbcc.edu. Click on "Internet Resources," then click on "Citation Guides."


Contents: 
Find Reference Books | Find Books to Check Out | Find Articles | Find Web Sites | Cite Your Sources


E-mail questions and comments to mwhite@lbcc.edu
Monica White, Liberal Arts Campus Library
http://lib.lbcc.edu/monicawhite/orientations/poets.html
Last updated: May 6, 2004
Back to Library homepage