Twentieth-Century English Poetry

What is the Twentieth-Century English Poetry resource?

Do you remember a snippet of a poem but can't recall the title or the poet who wrote it? Are you looking a few lines of poetry on a specific topic to complement a paper or to spark a story idea? Doing intensive research on the modernists or struggling to define post-modern? Twentieth-Century English Poetry is a resource that could guide a user to answers for all these scenarios.

As its name implies, the database focuses on the work of more than 280 poets who created from 1900 until the present day. That list includes such luminaries as W.B. Yeats, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Graves, A.E. Housman, and D.H. Lawrence, and the lesser known, in some circles, such as Wilfred Owen, John Betjeman, Fleur Adcock, Tony Harrison, Benjamin Zephaniah, Isaac Rosenberg, and Carol Ann Duffy.

Twentieth-Century English Poetry others access to 598 volumes of poetry from the lists of Carcanet, Enitharmon, Anvil Press, Bloodaxe Books and other poetry publishers. Its bibliography includes a Nobel laureate, Seamus Heaney, and new poets destined for renown in this century.

Where do I start?

After accessing TexShare Databases through your library's Web site, open Twentieth-Century English Poetry and start your search at the navigation bars on the left side of TWEP home page. SEARCH is the top of six choices, in white lettering on black background. The others are:

•  COMPLETE CONTENTS-Provides access in all of information on the site with an alphabetic list of all poets covered.
•  INFORMATION CENTRE-Get information about the Web site, and its editors and policies.
• LITERATURE COLLECTION-Discusses all the Chadwyck-Healey online literature information resources.
• SITE MAP-Guide to the Web site's sections.
• HELP-Provides information on the Web site and where to locate assistance on using specific parts of it.

Depending on what you already know, there are three ways to find information:

•  A user who already knows the name of a 20th century poet can open the COMPLETE CONTENTS tab on the navigation bar. That opens a complete list of all included poets in alphabetic order. An interactive A-to-Z index runs across the top that provides access to the names under each letter or a user can scroll through the list;
• A user can browse through the list of poets until he or she finds an item of interest;
• A user who knows a part of a poem or a word or is unsure of the spelling of a poet's name or does not have any information, can use the SEARCH tab which leads to page of dialog boxes designed to guide the user.

Twentieth-Century English Poetry's SEARCH page offers several unique features that other database search pages don't usually offer. For example, at the top, left are MARKED LIST and SEARCH HISTORY. The first allows the user to mark information for quick future reference. SEARCH HISTORY keeps a record of user searches.

Another unusual feature is that some of major dialog boxes allow the user to type information into the field or to "Select from a list" to enter a query. These boxes, indicated with red arrows, which accept user queries, also offer a scrollable list of the information from the database that it can fill in with a double click on the listing. The "Select from a list" possibilities include keywords, first line or title, poet, or

nationality, which is in the "Additional Poet Details" section that allows more detailed or specific searches. After filling in a dialog box either from a list or from user-generated information, just click on the "Search" button and TWEP displays the information that meets the search criteria. Users of the database can type information into any of the top three fields or select information from the lists then click the Search button or they can use any or all of bottom three sections of the Search page for more specific searchers. These dialog boxes allow users to type in specific years, as indicated by the green arrows above, or select items from a "pull down" menu, as indicated by the blue arrows above.

These optional boxes could help the user find information more quickly by focusing a search if the user knows certain facts about the work or poet that are the targets of the search.

The Twentieth-Century American Poetry database, also available from TexShare, works the same as TWEP.

This page was revised by Kyla Kothman in Spring 2007.
INF 382S: Library Instruction and Information Literacy, taught by Dr. Loriene Roy
School of Information, The University of Texas at Austin