Cite three lines or fewer of a poem by introducing the cited text with a colon. Use quotation marks and indicate line breaks with a slash. Include the line numbers in parentheses. An example is as follows: "Emily Dickinson's poem is about death: 'Because I could not stop for Death / He kindly stopped for me'." (1 - 2).
Cite four lines or more by blocking the cited text 10 lines (two tabs) from the left margin. Introduce it with a colon and skip a line. Do not use quotation marks. Cite line numbers after the poem's punctuation. For example,
Emily Dickinson's poem is about death:
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality. (1 - 4)
Begin your essay with a short cited passage of poetry, called an epigraph. Choose an epigraph that has speaks to the same theme, issue or argument as your essay. If your essay argues for open immigration, for example, you could use the opening line of Robert Frost's "Mending Wall": "Something there is that doesn't love a wall." Place the epigraph above your essay's first line, centered and in italics. Use quotation marks and attribute it to the poet. For example:
"Something there is the doesn't love a wall."
--Robert Frost
Write your entire essay in poetry. This was common in the 18th century, and a famous example is Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Criticism." A poetic essay can be useful if you are trying to make your paper stand out or if you want to use wit or satire to argue your point. Choose a rhyme scheme and meter that are appropriate. Pope uses iambic pentameter, which sounds official and authoritative. He offsets the seriousness with rhyming couplets, which connote playfulness.