Study Guide Library

Explore an ever-expanding selection of titles ranging from classic texts to contemporary works. SuperSummary Study Guides feature detailed summaries plus analyses of major themes, symbols, characters, and important quotes—all written by literature scholars and experts. Browse titles alphabetically or by genre.

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All TitlesModern FictionClassic FictionNonfictionPlaysEssaysPoetryMiddle Grade/YA
Hurt Locker
Brian Turner

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2005

The Circle Game
Margaret Atwood

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1964

The Convent Threshold
Christina Rossetti

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1862

my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell
Gwendolyn Brooks

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1945

If I should die
Emily Dickinson

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1891

Insomnia
Elizabeth Bishop

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1951

Two Sisters Of Persephone
Sylvia Plath

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1957

Wind
Ted Hughes

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1957

The Words Under the Words
Naomi Shihab Nye

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1995

The Progress of Poesy: A Pindaric Ode
Thomas Gray

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1757

Toy Boat
Ocean Vuong

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2016

Ebb
Edna St. Vincent Millay

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1921

Oxygen
Mary Oliver

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2005

America the Beautiful
Katharine Lee Bates

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1893

Coal
Audre Lorde

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1976

I look at the world
Langston Hughes

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2008

Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude
Ross Gay

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2015

Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law
Adrienne Rich

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1963

Approach of Winter
William Carlos Williams

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1921

Tender Buttons [A Long Dress]
Gertrude Stein

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1914

Requiem
Anna Akhmatova

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1963

What Teachers Make
Taylor Mali

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2002

The Lynching
Claude McKay

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1922

The Conqueror Worm
Edgar Allan Poe

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1843

The Little Boy Found
William Blake

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1789

Queen Mab: A Philosophical Poem
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1813

wishes for sons
Lucille Clifton

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1987

Sad Steps
Philip Larkin

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1974

The White House
Claude McKay

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1919

The Bear
Galway Kinnell

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2002

Of the Threads that Connect the Stars
Martín Espada

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2016

the rites for Cousin Vit
Gwendolyn Brooks

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1949

The Bull Moose
Alden Nowlan

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1996

Morning Song
Naomi Shihab Nye

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2019

A Primer for the Small Weird Loves
Richard Siken

Fiction | Poem | Adult

Boy at the Window
Richard Wilbur

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1952

The Venus Hottentot
Elizabeth Alexander

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1989

Different Ways to Pray
Naomi Shihab Nye

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1980

Exchanging Hats
Elizabeth Bishop

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1979

The Disquieting Muses
Sylvia Plath

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1960

Catullus 51
Gaius Valerius Catullus

Fiction | Poem | Adult | BCE

juxtaposing the black boy & the bullet
Danez Smith

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2014

300 Goats
Naomi Shihab Nye

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2016

Digging
Seamus Heaney

Fiction | Poem | Adult

The Explosion
Philip Larkin

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1974

What Work Is
Philip Levine

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1991

You Can Have It
Philip Levine

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1991

The New Colossus
Emma Lazarus

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1883

Ulysses
Gwendolyn Brooks

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1991

An Essay on Man
Alexander Pope

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1734

Sometime During Eternity . . .
Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1958

Valentine
Wendy Cope

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1992

What mystery pervades a well!
Emily Dickinson

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1896

Are you the new person drawn toward me?
Walt Whitman

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1860

If—
Rudyard Kipling

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1910

The Contract Says: We’d Like the Conversation to Be Bilingual
Ada Limón

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2018

America
Claude McKay

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1921

The United States Welcomes You
Tracy K. Smith

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2018

The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver
Edna St. Vincent Millay

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1922

I Can Wade Grief
Emily Dickinson

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1891

The Shampoo
Elizabeth Bishop

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1955

Kissing in Vietnamese
Ocean Vuong

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2014

History Lesson
Natasha Trethewey

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2000

Sandpiper
Elizabeth Bishop

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1962

This World is not Conclusion
Emily Dickinson

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1862

An Ancient Gesture
Edna St. Vincent Millay

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1949

Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing
Margaret Atwood

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1995

The Mother
Gwendolyn Brooks

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1945

The Almond Trees
Derek Walcott

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1985

The Painter
John Ashbery

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1955

Nothing Twice
Wisława Szymborska

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1997

The Landlady
Margaret Atwood

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1968

From the Wave
Thom Gunn

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1971

Litany
Billy Collins

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2002

An Agony. As Now.
Amiri Baraka

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1964

Sonnet 73
William Shakespeare

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1609

Five Flights Up
Elizabeth Bishop

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1974

If I Told Him, A Completed Portrait of Picasso
Gertrude Stein

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1924

The birth in a narrow room
Gwendolyn Brooks

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1949

When the World as We Knew It Ended
Joy Harjo

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2002

A Work Of Artifice
Marge Piercy

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1970

Act of Union
Seamus Heaney

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1975

Not In A Silver Casket Cool With Pearls
Edna St. Vincent Millay

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1931

The Young Housewife
William Carlos Williams

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1916

A Miracle for Breakfast
Elizabeth Bishop

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1972

I Will Put Chaos Into Fourteen Lines
Edna St. Vincent Millay

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1949

Conscientious Objector
Edna St. Vincent Millay

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1934

The Congo
Vachel Lindsay

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1914

Sheep In Fog
Sylvia Plath

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1963

& even the black guy’s profile reads 'sorry, no black guys'
Danez Smith

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2017

Travel
Edna St. Vincent Millay

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1921

To Waken An Old Lady
William Carlos Williams

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1917

Home After Three Months Away
Robert Lowell

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1959

A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon
Gwendolyn Brooks

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1960

A Man Said to the Universe
Stephen Crane

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1899

True Love
Robert Penn Warren

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1985

Postcolonial Love Poem
Natalie Diaz

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2020

Barbara Frietchie
John Greenleaf Whittier

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1863

Mementos, 1
W. D. Snodgrass

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1987

Whatever You Say, Say Nothing
Seamus Heaney

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1975