Surround poem titles in quotation marks. This is similar to enclosing regular titles in quotation marks. For example, you might write the following:
John Wilson's "A Summer Day" describes a summer day.
The name of John Wilson's poem is "A Summer Day."
Separate multiple lines from a poem with the right slash "/" character if you quote two or three lines as shown below:
John Wilson speaks of winter in these lines, "Snows of winter come" / "Trees shiver in the cold" (2-3).
Note the string "(2-3)." at the end. Those numbers in parenthesis are the line numbers in the poem from which you obtained the lines. In this example, line two in the original poem is "Snows of winter come," and line three is "Trees shiver in the cold."
Place closing punctuation after the closing parenthesis as shown above. You often find a poem's line numbers on the left side of the poem. If you do not see line numbers, place the poem's title between parentheses instead of the numbers.
Place lines from a poem on separate lines if you have more than three lines to quote. Indent them by pressing the tab key twice before each line. Double space the lines, and do not place quotation marks around them. Leave the poem's punctuation intact. Place the line numbers, in parentheses, after the closing punctuation on the last line.
Place the title of the poem in parenthesis when using it in a Works Citation. Following is a sample Works Citation:
Wilson, James Witherson. "Snows of Winter." Modern Poetry. Ed. J.L. Oscar Jenkins. Chicago:Peterson Janice, 2009. 292. Print.
The poem's title is "Snows of Winter." Note that the period goes inside the closing quote.