PERRLA/Guides/MLA 9/Poem, story, or essay in an anthology

How to Cite a Poem, Story, or Essay in an Anthology in MLA 9

An MLA 9 Works Cited entry for a poem, short story, or essay in an anthology starts with the piece's author, last name first, and the piece's title in quotation marks. If the piece came out earlier, you may add that year next. Then come the anthology's title in italics, edited by and the editors' names, the publisher, the anthology's year, pp. and the pages the piece fills, and the DOI if it has one. The in-text citation is the author's last name and the page: (Whitman 43). For a poem with numbered lines, cite the lines instead: (Whitman, lines 12–14).

The format

Last Name, First Name. "Title of the Piece." Original Year. Title of the Anthology, edited by First Name Last Name, Publisher, Year, pp. #–#.

PERRLA MLA Experts · Updated October 27, 2026
Checked against the MLA Handbook, 9th edition. Every example is formatted by PERRLA's reference engine.

First, the easy way: PERRLA

In PERRLA, choose Anthology, then An entry in an anthology. For the kind, pick An entry in an anthology. Add the writer of the piece as the author and the anthology's editors as editors. Then fill in Entry Title, Anthology Title, Entry Page Numbers, the anthology's Publication Year, the publisher, and the DOI. If the piece was published before and you want to show it, type that year in Entry's Original Publication Year.

PERRLA puts the piece's title in quotation marks, the original year right after it, the anthology in italics, the editors after edited by, and pp. before the page range. Citing lines of a poem? In the citation, choose Other as the location, type lines in Label and the line numbers in Value, and PERRLA writes (Whitman, lines 12–14).

Not using PERRLA yet? Here is how to build the same works cited entry by hand.

The parts of the works cited entry

1. Author of the piece

Start with the person who wrote the poem, story, or essay, not the anthology's editors: last name, a comma, and the first name, as the anthology prints it. End with a period.

Whitman, Walt.

Names can differ from one printing to the next. The 1982 essay in our examples is signed Eric J. Cassel, while his later books spell it Cassell, so the entry for the essay uses Cassel. If a piece is anonymous or traditional, start the entry with its title instead.

2. Title of the piece

Put the title of a poem, short story, or essay in quotation marks and title case, with the period inside the closing quotation mark. Leave off notes the anthology adds to the title, like "from The Cancer Journals."

"The Wound Dresser."

A work that usually stands on its own, like a whole play or novel, keeps its italics even inside an anthology: Macbeth. A numbered poem with no title, like a sonnet, gets its number in plain text: Sonnet 30.

3. Original publication date (optional)

If the piece was published before it went into the anthology, you may give the year it first came out, right after its title, followed by a period. It tells your reader the piece is older than the book you read it in.

1865.

Find the year on the anthology's permissions or acknowledgments page, in the headnote before the piece, or in a reliable source about the author. Make sure it's the piece's first appearance. If the piece was written for this anthology, there's nothing to add.

4. Anthology title

The anthology is the container, so its title goes in italics and title case, followed by a comma.

A Life in Medicine: A Literary Anthology,

5. Editors

Write edited by, lowercase because it follows the comma after the anthology title, then the editors' names in normal order, first name first. Join two with and; for three or more, give the first and et al. A comma follows.

edited by Robert Coles and Randy Testa,

An edition comes next, if there is one (6th ed.,), then a volume number for one volume of a set (vol. 1,).

6. Publisher and year

Give the anthology's publisher with no city, and its copyright year, each followed by a comma. Drop an initial The and business words like Company or Inc., and shorten University Press to UP. The title page reads The New Press, so MLA writes New Press.

New Press, 2002,

7. Pages

Write pp. and the pages the piece fills in the anthology, joined by an en dash, or p. for a one-page poem. Past 99, the second number keeps only its last two digits.

pp. 174–79,

8. DOI

If the piece or the anthology has a DOI, end with it as a full https://doi.org/ link and a period. With no DOI, a print anthology ends after the pages.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781595587800-012.

Examples

A classic poem reprinted in an anthology

Walt Whitman's Civil War hospital poem, reprinted in a literary anthology for health care students and clinicians. It first appeared in Drum-Taps in 1865, under the title "The Dresser," according to the Walt Whitman Archive, so the original year is 1865.

  • In-text citation(Whitman 43)
  • Narrative citationWhitman's speaker recalls … (43).

An essay taken from a book

Audre Lorde's essay on choosing not to wear a breast prosthesis after her mastectomy. The anthology reprints it from The Cancer Journals, first published by Spinsters, Ink in 1980. It has its own title, so that title goes in quotation marks.

  • In-text citation(Lorde 176)
  • Narrative citationAs Lorde writes, … (176).

An essay that first ran in a journal

Eric J. Cassel's essay on suffering first appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1982, and the same anthology reprints it. Cite the version you read, in the anthology. Don't mix it up with his later book of the same title, published under the spelling Cassell.

  • In-text citation(Cassel 210)
  • Narrative citationCassel argues that … (210).

In-text citations

An MLA 9 in-text citation for a piece in an anthology names the piece's author, never the editors, with the page of the anthology where your quote appears.

  • Prose, like an essay or story: the author and the page, with no comma: (Lorde 176)
  • A poem with numbered lines: cite lines, not pages. The first time, write lines and a comma after the name: (Whitman, lines 12–14). After that, give the numbers alone: (Whitman 20–22).
  • A poem with no line numbers: use the page: (Whitman 43).
  • Name in your sentence: put only the page or lines at the end: Lorde writes that … (176).
  • Two pieces by the same author: add a short title in quotation marks: (Whitman, "Wound Dresser" 43).

Quoting two or more lines of a poem in your sentence? Separate them with a slash with a space on each side: "line one / line two."

Common mistakes

  • Coles, Robert, and Randy Testa, editors. A Life in Medicine. for Whitman's poemWhitman, Walt. "The Wound Dresser." 1865. A Life in Medicine: A Literary Anthology, edited by Robert Coles and Randy Testa,When you quote one piece, the entry starts with the piece's author. The editors move after the anthology title.
  • Whitman, Walt. The Wound Dresser.Whitman, Walt. "The Wound Dresser."A poem, story, or essay is part of a larger work, so its title goes in quotation marks. Italics are for the anthology.
  • A Life in Medicine: A Literary Anthology. Edited by Robert Coles and Randy Testa,A Life in Medicine: A Literary Anthology, edited by Robert Coles and Randy Testa,The anthology title is a container, so a comma follows it, and edited by stays lowercase.
  • (Whitman, 1865/2002)(Whitman 43)That's APA. MLA in-text citations give the author and the page or lines, never the years.
  • (Whitman, p. 43)(Whitman 43)No comma and no p. between the name and a page number. The comma is only for a labeled locator like lines.
  • "Breast Cancer: Power vs. Prosthesis from The Cancer Journals.""Breast Cancer: Power vs. Prosthesis."Give the piece's own title. A note the anthology adds about where it came from isn't part of the title.

Quick checklist

  • The piece's author first, not the editors
  • The piece's title in quotation marks and title case
  • Optional: the year it first appeared, after the title
  • Anthology title in italics, then a comma
  • edited by and the editors, first name first
  • Publisher, year, and pp. with the piece's pages
  • In the text: the author and the page, or lines for a poem

Questions students ask

How do I cite a poem in an anthology in MLA 9?

Start with the poet's name, last name first, and the poem's title in quotation marks. Then give the anthology in italics, edited by and the editors, the publisher, the year, and pp. with the poem's pages. In the text, cite line numbers if the poem has them, with lines the first time: (Whitman, lines 12–14).

Do I have to include the original publication date?

No. MLA treats it as optional. Add it right after the piece's title when it helps your reader know the piece is older than the anthology, like a nineteenth-century poem in a 2002 collection.

Do I cite the anthology's editor or the author?

The author of the piece you're quoting. The editors still appear in the entry, after edited by, but your in-text citation uses the author: (Lorde 176). Cite the editors only when you're discussing the anthology as a whole or quoting their introduction.

How do I cite several pieces from the same anthology?

Give each piece its own full entry, or list the anthology once under its editors and give each piece a short cross-reference: Lorde, Audre. "Breast Cancer: Power vs. Prosthesis." Coles and Testa, pp. 174–79. Use one approach for the whole Works Cited list.

How do I cite a translated poem or story in an anthology?

When someone translated only that piece, put Translated by and the translator's name right after the piece's title, followed by a period, before the anthology title. A translator of the whole anthology goes after the editors instead, as translated by.

What if the poem is in a book of poems by one poet?

Cite the poem the same way, with the book as the container. If the book has an editor, write by and the poet's last name after the book's title, then edited by and the editor's name, so your reader knows every poem in it is the poet's. If it has no editor, go straight to the publisher. Quoting several poems from one poet's collection? You can cite the whole book once in your Works Cited list and name the poems in your sentences.

How do I cite lines from a poem in MLA?

Use line numbers instead of page numbers when the poem numbers its lines. Write lines before the numbers the first time, with a comma after the author's name, then give the numbers alone after that. In your sentence, mark line breaks with a slash with a space on each side.

Rules checked against the MLA Handbook (9th ed.), chapter 5 (the core elements, containers, and supplemental elements, including section 5.108 on original publication dates) and chapter 6 (in-text citations), and the MLA Style Center's posts on line numbers in in-text citations, excerpts from anthologies, numbered poems in anthologies, plays in anthologies, supplemental elements (a translator of one piece), capitalized labels before contributors, citing several works from one collection (cross-references), reprinted books, Press in publishers' names (its New Press example), and one-author collections. Example sources are the ones verified for the APA 7 page: each chapter's Crossref DOI record and the De Gruyter table of contents, the anthology's copyright page (2002, Robert Coles and Randy Testa), PubMed (Cassel, 1982, New England Journal of Medicine), and the Walt Whitman Archive ("The Dresser" in Drum-Taps, 1865).

PERRLA builds the entry with the piece in quotation marks and the anthology as its container, and cites the piece's author in your text.

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