Representative Poetry Online, version 3.0, includes 3,162 English poems by 500 poets from Caedmon, in the Old English period, to the work of living poets today. It is based on Representative Poetry, established by Professor W. J. Alexander of University College, University of Toronto, in 1912 (one of the first books published by the University of Toronto Press), and used in the English Department at the University until the late 1960s.
Its electronic founder and editor since 1994 is Ian Lancashire, who is a member of the Department of English, University of Toronto. He edits the poems in affection for and gratitude to their authors, whose works enrich and restore our lives.
The bibliographical sources from which the selections are made hold great libraries of poetry for readers and critics venturing out on their own, and for the reader interested in reading more by one poet. If you enjoy these poems, you may also learn from them by growing interested in the poets, the periods in which they lived, and the intellectual and artistic traditions that define the conversations which poets have with their predecessors.