Organized by themes, this resource offers interpretations of 250 American poems, representing a wide variety of poets both historical and contemporary, with supplemental biographical sketched of the poets, and information on where to find the poems cited. This Thematic Guide offers interpretations of 250 poems, representing the work of 86 poets spanning a wide spectrum of historical and contemporary, ethnic, and canonical writers. This unique poetry resource should have usefulness and appeal to librarians and teachers who need to identify and locate poems on a given theme, and to students and all lovers of poetry who wish to enrich their understanding of the thematic meanings of poems. The organization of this volume is intended to facilitate easy access to information on poetry for users’ individual purposes. The main section of the guide contains narrative essays on 21 alphabetically arranged themes that recur throughout the rich history of American poetry. Within each section the explications of individual poems are arranged chronologically to trace the evolution of a particular theme over time. Educators teaching thematic units will find relevant essays here appropriate as either background presentation, discussions ideas, or for student assignments. This volume is also designed to assist users in locating the text of all the poems cited here. Following each entry, the poems are listed with information about the anthologies where the texts can be found. Most of the abbreviations used here correspond to the codes used in the Columbia Granger’s Index to Poetry in Anthology familiar to most librarians. This volume may also be used to find analysis of different poems by a particular poet. The index will direct the user to all discussions of a poet in the volume. An Appendix provides concise biographical sketches of the covered poets, arranged alphabetically. These entries contain information about the poets’ lives, their major works, their stylistic contributions and their thematic concerns. This background information should be helpful in providing students and all readers with the context to better understand the thematic issues of the poetry discussed here. Along with the other components of this work, the additional suggested readings provide add to the value of this multifaceted volumes as a resource for research, classroom use and as an indispensable tool for librarians assisting readers to identify poets, access their works and to better understand the thematic meanings of poetry.