In this latest title in the Libraries Unlimited Undergraduate Companion Series, librarian Katharine Dean provides an introduction to the lives and works of more than 200 women poets from around the world. Poets selected for inclusion are of interest for the college classroom and must be noted in a familiar literary reference work “or English‐language reference source”. There must also be at least one web site on the poet “that contains information about the poet's life and work, or electronic translations of excerpts of works by the poet”. (pp. xi‐xii).
Most of the book is a chapter entitled Web Sites and References for Women Poets. It is in this chapter, that Dean lists the 221 poets in alphabetical order by last name (or by the generally recognized name, e.g. H.D.). For each poet there is first a list of web sites either exclusively devoted to that poet or with significant information about the poet. Then follows biographies, criticism, and bibliographies. For such poets as Emily Dickinson, dictionaries, encyclopedias and handbooks; indexes and concordances; and journals are also listed. With each poet's name are given birth (and death, if applicable) dates and nationality and/or country of birth. For each item (web site, reference book, etc.) there is either a URL for the web site or publication information for the printed material followed by a brief annotation. Two chapters begin the book. The first lists 49 frequently cited web sites including full bibliographic information, the URL, and the date last visited by the author. The descriptive annotation with each web site describes “the scope and content of the site” (p. xii). The second chapter is Frequently Cited References that gives full bibliographical information for titles which are frequently referred to in the listings. An index of poets at the end of the book provides a quick listing of all the poets included.
This is an ambitious undertaking especially in its international scope. The author states in her preface that one of the biggest challenges was to have a balance of poets who do not write in English and those who do write in English. A small number of non‐English speaking poets “have entries in widely available biographical, critical, and bibliographical reference sources” (p. xi). There was also a dearth of web sites for international poets and “sites that present English translations of their works” (p. 11). Dean is the co‐author of another volume in this series – The Undergraduate's Companion to Women Writers and Their Web Sites (Dean et al., 2002). She is the bibliographer for English and theatre at Ohio State University as well as serving as a general reference librarian in the Information Services Department. Her depth of knowledge about women poets is evident in this volume. As far as this reviewer can tell, this is the most comprehensive book of this kind for women poets – especially with an international scope.
