How to Cite a Poem in MLA, APA and Chicago (With Line Numbers)

To cite a poem, give the poet, the poem's title in quotation marks, the collection or website it appeared in, the publisher or site, the date and the page range or URL. When you quote it in your essay, MLA expects line numbers in the parenthetical citation, with "lines" spelled out the first time, and slashes to show line breaks. APA uses the author and year, with a page number for quotations, and Chicago puts the details in a footnote.

All poets and poems in this article are fictional.

MLA 9th edition (the most common style for poetry)

Most poetry analysis is written in MLA, so it gets the most detail here.

Poem in a single-author collection

Poet Last Name, First Name. "Title of Poem." Title of Collection, Publisher, Year, pp. xx-xx.

Waddell, Corinne. "Inventory of a Kitchen Drawer." Small Weather, Thistlewood Press, 2019, pp. 22-23.

Poem in an anthology with an editor

Waddell, Corinne. "Salt Year." The Lantern Anthology of New Poets, edited by Samuel Oduya, Brightwater Books, 2022, pp. 104-06.

Poem on a website or online magazine

Ferrante, Lucia. "What the Ferry Knows." Harbor Light Review, 3 Apr. 2024, www.harborlightreview.example.com/ferry.

If the poem has no clear publication date, add an access date at the end: "Accessed 9 Oct. 2026."

In-text citations with line numbers

MLA recommends line numbers for poetry when you can count them, because page layout can change between editions.

• First citation: (Waddell, lines 4-6)
• Later citations of the same poem: (Waddell 9-11)
• If you name the poet in your sentence: (lines 4-6), then (9-11)

The comma appears in the first example because you're using a label ("lines") instead of a page number.

If you're citing more than one poem by the same poet, add a shortened title: (Waddell, "Salt Year," lines 2-3).

Long poems divided into books, cantos or parts are cited with the division number, a period, and the line numbers. Check the edition you're using for its numbering.

Quoting poetry correctly

Short quotations (up to three lines)

Run the quotation into your sentence, marking each line break with a slash that has a space on each side. Mark a stanza break with a double slash.

The speaker treats the drawer as a family record: "rubber bands from every newspaper / a key that fits no door we own / my mother's handwriting on a twist tie" (Waddell, lines 4-6).

Keep the poem's original capitalization and punctuation within the quotation marks. If you leave words out, use an ellipsis; if you change a word for grammar, use square brackets.

Long quotations (four or more lines)

Set the lines as a block quotation, indented half an inch from the left margin, with no quotation marks. Keep the original line breaks and spacing. The citation goes after the final punctuation.

Waddell closes the poem by turning the clutter into a kind of inheritance:

we never empty it,
we only add,
as if the drawer remembers
what we would rather keep. (lines 17-20)

In your actual paper, use your word processor's indent rather than a blockquote marker; the indentation is what matters.

MLA Citation GeneratorMLA 9 works-cited entries

APA 7th edition

APA is less common for poetry, but you may need it in psychology, education or social science papers that discuss poems.

Poem in an edited anthology

Poet, A. A. (Year). Title of poem. In E. E. Editor (Ed.), Title of anthology (pp. xx–xx). Publisher.

Waddell, C. (2022). Salt year. In S. Oduya (Ed.), The Lantern anthology of new poets (pp. 104–106). Brightwater Books.

In-text: (Waddell, 2022, p. 104)

The poem title is in plain text, sentence case. The anthology title is in italics, sentence case (proper nouns, like "Lantern" here, keep their capitals).

Poem in a single-author collection

For a collection written by one poet, APA usually cites the whole book and names the specific poem in your sentence.

Waddell, C. (2019). Small weather. Thistlewood Press.

In text: In "Inventory of a Kitchen Drawer," Waddell (2019) lists...

Poem online

Ferrante, L. (2024, April 3). What the ferry knows. Harbor Light Review. https://www.harborlightreview.example.com/ferry

In-text: (Ferrante, 2024)

APA's guidance on line numbers for poetry is less detailed than MLA's. If you need to point to specific lines, ask your instructor whether line numbers are acceptable instead of, or in addition to, page numbers.

Chicago style

Chicago uses footnotes and a bibliography. Poem titles go in quotation marks, and collection titles in italics.

Footnote:

1. Corinne Waddell, "Inventory of a Kitchen Drawer," in Small Weather (Thistlewood Press, 2019), 22, lines 4–6.

Shortened note:

2. Waddell, "Inventory," lines 17–20.

Bibliography:
Waddell, Corinne. "Inventory of a Kitchen Drawer." In Small Weather, 22–23. Thistlewood Press, 2019.

Some editions and instructors also want the city of publication before the publisher. See how to do footnotes for more on note formatting.

Quick comparison

Writing about poems: a few habits

• Refer to "the speaker," not the poet, unless you have good reason to treat the poem as autobiographical.
• Use present tense to describe what a poem does: "Waddell contrasts..." not "Waddell contrasted..."
• Quote short and analyze long. Two lines followed by three sentences of analysis is stronger than ten lines followed by one.
• Cite each quotation, even when you're discussing the same poem for several paragraphs.

Key takeaways

• Poem titles go in quotation marks (MLA, Chicago); collections in italics.
• MLA in-text citations use line numbers: "lines" the first time, numbers alone afterward.
• Mark line breaks with " / " and stanza breaks with " // " in short quotations; set four or more lines as a block quote.
• When the rule for an unusual poem or edition isn't clear, check your instructor's preferences or the latest style guide.

Analyzing the language itself? Our guide to figurative language covers the devices you'll most often discuss.