“The Road Not Taken” and Paradise Lost are both poems, yet writers format them differently every time they appear in a paper, a newsletter, or a caption.
One gets quotation marks, and the other gets italics, and the difference has nothing to do with quality or fame.
Choose wrongly, and an otherwise careful essay can look careless to the readers and graders who notice.
So, are poems italicized, or not? The answer hinges on a single question about where a poem lives, and the edge cases are stranger than the rule.
Below, you’ll find the one-question test that sorts both titles, the exceptions style guides openly admit, and how MLA, APA, and Chicago compare.
Are Poems Italicized or Put in Quotation Marks?
Poem titles follow a container rule. If the poem stands alone as a book, such as an epic, its title is italicized.
If the poem sits inside a larger work, such as a collection, anthology, or magazine, its title goes in quotation marks. The lines of a poem stay in regular type when you quote them.
| What You Are Naming | Format | Example |
| Short poem | Quotation marks | “The Raven” |
| Book-length or epic poem | Italics | Paradise Lost |
| Poetry collection | Italics | Mountain Interval |
| Poem inside a collection | Quotation marks | “The Road Not Taken” |
Students who want to see these choices inside a finished paper can look at our poetry analysis essay example, but the real work lies at the edges of the rule, where a poem could count as either short or long.
Do You Italicize Poem Titles? Long Poems and Collections
Yes, but only for poems published as their own book and for the titles of collections. A poem that appears inside a collection, anthology, or magazine takes quotation marks instead.
Style guides add that no fixed line count separates a long poem from a short one, so the way a poem was published is a better test than its length.
The two cases below show how that plays out.
Book-Length and Epic Poems
When a poem is long enough to be published as its own book, its title is italicized like any other book title.
Homer’s The Odyssey, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land all fit this pattern. Handwritten work follows the same logic, with underlining standing in for italics.
The tricky cases are poems that fall between the two sizes. A reader once asked the Chicago Manual of Style where the cutoff sits, and Chicago’s Q&A on poem titles answers that there is no magic number and that convention often decides.
Its editors point out that Dante’s Inferno is italicized while Shakespeare’s Sonnets take neither italics nor quotation marks, and they treat “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” as a poem that could go either way, as long as you stay consistent.
Poetry Collections and Anthologies
A collection works like any other book, so its title is italicized while each poem inside it is quoted.
Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” appeared in his collection Mountain Interval, published in 1916, which gives you both formats in a single sentence.
The same pattern holds for anthologies and magazines, where the container is italicized, and the poems it holds are quoted.
When Poem Titles Go in Quotation Marks
Quotation marks are the default for poem titles, which is why most writing about poetry uses them.
Even Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” first published in 1845 and running 108 lines, takes quotation marks because it appeared in periodicals and collections rather than as a standalone book.
Length is only one feature that separates a short lyric from a narrative poem, and our guide to the elements of poetry covers the rest, such as rhythm and rhyme.
Many poems have no title at all. Emily Dickinson left most of hers untitled, so readers identify them by the first line, such as “Because I could not stop for Death,” and that first line goes in quotation marks like any other short poem title.
In US English, commas and periods also sit inside the closing quotation mark, even though the title is not a quotation, as in We read “The Raven,” then discussed its rhythm.
Poem Titles in MLA, APA, and Chicago Style
All three major academic styles accept the container rule, so a poem title in quotation marks and a collection title in italics will be correct in each.
MLA and Chicago both italicize book-length poems and quote shorter ones. APA does the same in running text, where shorter works that belong to a larger whole take quotation marks.
Its reference list is the one place the pattern changes, since the title of a shorter work usually appears there in plain type without quotation marks.
Newsrooms are the big exception. The Associated Press style drops italics entirely and places quotation marks around the titles of poems, books, movies, and most other works, long poems included.
Some organizations modify AP style to bring italics back, so a journalist or blogger should check the publication’s house style.
If you cannot tell which guide applies to you, ask your instructor or editor, because applying one system consistently matters more than which system you pick.
Are Poems Italicized in an Essay?
Inside an essay, the rule stays the same, and the lines you quote stay in regular type.
Short quotations run inside your sentence with a slash marking each line break, as shown in Purdue OWL’s literature formatting guide, while longer passages move into a block quote.
Your own essay title is plain text, with no italics or quotation marks, unless it contains another work’s title.
A poem title inside it keeps its quotation marks, so a paper might be titled Silence and Sound in “The Raven,” while a book title inside it would be italicized.
Common Poem Title Mistakes to Avoid
Most poem title errors come down to five habits, listed below.
- Italicizing every poem title because it looks literary, which makes a short poem read like a book.
- Putting quotation marks around a collection title such as Mountain Interval.
- Italicizing the quoted lines of a poem, which adds emphasis the poet never asked for.
- Mixing systems in one document, such as quoting “The Raven” in one paragraph and italicizing it in the next.
- Deciding by line count alone instead of by how the poem was published, since even Chicago admits there is no fixed cutoff.
A One-Question Test for Poem Titles
So, are poems italicized? Only when the title names a whole book, such as Paradise Lost, or a collection, such as Mountain Interval.
Quotation marks mark the poem inside the book, such as “The Raven” or “The Road Not Taken.”
Style guides disagree only at the margins, including Chicago’s flexible treatment of mid-length poems and AP’s use of quotation marks for nearly everything, and consistency matters more than any single choice there.
On your next piece of writing, run each poem title through the question of whether it names a book or something inside one, then check your style guide for the finer points.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do You Italicize the Title of a Short Story? What About Poem Titles?
Short story titles go in quotation marks, just like poem titles, because a story usually sits inside a collection or magazine. A novella published as its own book is italicized, as is a collection such as The Garden Party and Other Stories.
What Are the Three R’s of Poetry?
Teachers use the three R’s as a quick guide for young readers and writers: rhyme, rhythm, and repetition. Not every poem uses all three, and free verse often skips rhyme.
How Do You Correctly Cite a Poem?
Cite it like any other source, with the poet as the author. MLA uses the poet’s last name, such as (Rich), plus line numbers when you quote specific lines, while APA uses the author and year, such as (Frost, 1916).
What Is the Proper Way to Write a Poem Title?
Use title case, leaving articles, conjunctions, and short prepositions lowercase in the middle. If the title is a first line, keep its capitalization exactly as printed in your source, and leave the title above your own poem plain.
