When a poem is included in an anthology, the book usually has an editor who compiled the entire book. The editor's name and the title of the book are required for APA format citations of poems. In addition, the other information required for the different APA citations can most likely be found on the back of the inside cover page of the book.
When citing a poem in APA format, it is important to follow directions very carefully since the citation must be written in a very specific manner. In order to correctly complete an APA citation for poem for the works cited or reference page of a paper, follow these steps. Type the last name of the poem's author, a comma, her first initial and a period. Type the year the book was published in parentheses and a period. Type the title of the poem (only capitalizing the first word) and a period. Type "In," the editor's first initial, last name, "(Ed.)" and a comma. Type the title of the book in italics (capitalizing all important words). Type "pp." and the page number(s) where the poem can be found (all in parentheses). Type a period, the city where the book was published, a comma, the state where the book was published, a semi-colon, the publishing company and a period. The final citation should look like this: "Smith, F. (2003). The moon in fall. In S. Jones (Ed.), My Favorite Poems (pp. 78-79). New York, NY: Penguin Publishing."
When writing your APA format paper, it is permitted to directly quote the poem you are using. In order to write the in-text APA format citation for a poem, follow these steps. Type the direct quotation of the poem in the text of the paper in quotation marks. Type a / (slash) mark surrounded by a space on each side to separate any different lines of the poem. Type the poem author's last name, a comma and the page numbers where the poem can be found. Place the entire citation in parentheses. The final citation should look like this: "(Smith, pp. 78-79)."
Sometimes, you will find a poem on the Internet which is not written into a book. In order to properly cite that type of poem in APA style, you must follow these steps. Type the last name of the poem's author, a comma, his first initial and a period. Type the year the poem was written in parentheses and a period. Type the title of the poem (only capitalizing the first word and a period. Type web (in brackets), a period, "retrieved from" and the website where the poem was found. The final citation should look like this: "Smith, F. (2003). The moon in fall. [Web]. Retrieved from http://www.poems.com."