Please see the attached document.

RiversideCommunity College Name ____________________________

Writing and Reading Center Date _____________________________

Directed learning Activity M.6

MLA Format: Internal Citations in Poetry

Purpose: Upon completion of this activity, students will
be able to quote poetry within a paper using MLA
format.

This DLA should take approximately 30 to 45 minutes
to complete.

To Begin: Read the attached handout entitled “Quoting Poetry within a Paper using MLA
Documentation” from Shepherd University.

Next: Refer to the handout and to Sylvia Plath’s poem, “Metaphors” (below) to answer the following
questions.

Metaphors
(by Sylvia Plath, 1932-1963)

I’m a riddle in nine syllables
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf’s big with its yeasty rising.
Money’s new minted in this fat purse.
I’m a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I’ve eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there’s no getting off.

1. On the lines below, indicate the correct formatting and parenthetical citation for lines 2-4 of
“Metaphors”:

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2. On the lines below, following the single phrase that has already been written for you, indicate the
correct formatting and parenthetical citation for lines 4-7 of “Metaphors.”

Although the tone of the poem is somewhat ambivalent, the speaker’s positive feelings are
conveyed most clearly in the following lines:

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EQ: How do I quote poetry in the
body of my papers using MLA
format?

Riverside Community College Name ____________________________

Writing and Reading Center Date _____________________________
Directed learning Activity M.6

3. According to the handout, when should you NOT use an ellipsis (…)?
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4. According to the handout, when SHOULD you use an ellipsis?
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5. Cite lines 1-2 and 7-8 (that is, omit lines 3-6) from the following poem. (Refer to the handout under

the section, “If you remove one or more full line…”)

Smile
(by N. Scott Momaday, b. 1934)

What did we say to each other
that now we are as the deer
who walk in single file
with heads high
with ears forward
with eyes watchful
with hooves always placed on firm ground
in whose limbs there is latent flight

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6. How do you cite several single words or phrases from a poem when including them in a single

sentence?
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When you finish, meet with a tutor or an instructor on duty. Ask that person any additional questions you

might have about citing poetry, and be sure you can answer the EQ (essential question) above.

Instructor Signature: ______________________________ Date: _______________________

Riverside Community College Name ____________________________
Writing and Reading Center Date _____________________________
Directed learning Activity M.6

Quoting Poetry within a Paper using MLA Documentation

(MLA Handbook, 8th Edition) Updated 2016

The rules for poetry differ from the rules for quoting prose in two key ways:

 Poetry requires writers to cite line numbers not page numbers.

 Poetry requires writers to keep line breaks in tact.

Quoting 1, 2 or 3 lines of poetry. You can quote three or fewer lines of poetry

without having to place the lines in a block quote. Use quotation marks. Use a slash to

indicate the break between lines. Put the line numbers in parentheses. Place the period

at the end of the line number(s):

Heaney directly compares poetry writing to the digging his ancestors did: “Between my finger

and my thumb / The squat pen rests. / I’ll dig with it” (29-31).

If a stanza break occurs in the quotation, mark it with two forward slashes (//).

Quoting 4 or more lines of poetry. If you quote four or more lines of poetry, you

need to block indent the poem one-half inch from the left margin.

The author, David Bottoms, is wise to the fact that men often use sports to communicate their

feelings. The persona of the poem, however, takes years to realize his father’s message. Once he

realizes the importance of sports to their relationship, he sends a message back to his father:

and I never learned what you were laying down.

Like a hand brushed across the bill of a cap,

let this be the sign

I’m getting a grip on the sacrifice. (20-23)

Do not use ellipses if you start quoting a poem midline. If you want to start quoting

in the middle of a line of poetry, just add indentions to indicate the text is only a

partial line. Do not use ellipses points (. . .).

The Tao te ching, in David Hinton’s translation, says that the ancient masters were “so deep beyond

knowing/we can only describe their appearance://perfectly cautious, as if crossing winter

streams….”

Riverside Community College Name ____________________________
Writing and Reading Center Date _____________________________
Directed learning Activity M.6

McDonald paints a picture of a family in pain, but he uses images that usually show up in cozier

circumstances, such as children reading the comics:

At dawn

we folded the quilts

and funnies, crept softly

through our chores. (13-16)

If you remove words from the middle of a line, DO use ellipses to represent the

missing text.

As a boy, the persona visited his grandfather in the fields: “Once I carried him milk. . . . / He

straightened up / To drink it” (Heaney 19-21).

If you remove one or more full line, use a line of ellipses to indicate the omission.

The persona in Hayden’s poem would wake to hear the fire his father started before dawn:

Sundays too my father got up early

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he’d call,

and slowly I would rise and dress. (1, 6-8)

Put line numbers after citing several single words. If you quote several words or

phrases from throughout a poem, list the line numbers after each word.

Roethke uses a variety of words in “My Papa’s Waltz” that indicate physical violence, words

such as “death” (3), “battered” (9), “scraped” (12), “beat” (13), and “hard” (14).

For one word, put the line number at the end. Just as when quoting a single word

of a prose work, put line numbers at the end of a sentence if quoting only one word.

When Heaney uses a simile to compare his pen to a “gun,” he creates a startling image (2).