MLA is a citation style developed by the Modern Language Association. While MLA style is traditionally used with papers written on humanities topics or within humanities fields, it can be used for other papers as well. Many professors have their own preference for what citation style to use, so you could write a paper in a different field and still use MLA style.
The poems you will use in your research are primarily found in anthology collections. This means that you need to also include citation information from the book itself and not just the poem. If you have a poem on its own or from an electronic source, it is probably best to find a book source that has the poem so that you ensure all the details are accurate.
According to the Purdue Online Writing Lab, MLA uses the author-page number style of in-text citations. You will need to include the author of the poem's last name and the page number the poem is found on in parentheses after you reference the poem. An example would be: (Whitman, 57).
According to the Purdue Online Writing Lab, for the works cited page you will need to include the author of the poem, the title of the poem, the title of the book it was found in (book title italicized), the editor of the book, the publication information, the page number you found the poem on and the medium of publication. Most MLA citations don't include the page number on the works cited page but it is important with poems since they come from a collection of works. The citation should look like this: Keats, John. "On a Dream." Keats: Poems and Selected Letters. Ed. Carlos Baker. New York: Bantam Books, 1962. 64. Print.