Free Poetry Books

As a teacher in a rural college, I am faced with students whose daily financial struggles affect their ability to attend and be fully prepared for classes. Even more so now, living in a state with the highest unemployment, I have students who cannot afford to buy textbooks, or who will miss class because they can’t afford the gas it will take to get back and forth to campus.

I have been using online lit for a long time – online lit mags as well as print publications with online supplements. But I am always appreciative to find publishers who offer completely free online books. I have posted on “free books” before, and was reminded of the public library as a resource, but in this case, I’m talking about being able to access 15-25 copies of a book – for free. I certainly don’t expect all publishers to offer this – those who do have their own philosophies of open access.

What it allows me to do is put collections of poetry into the hands of students who otherwise might never “own” such a book. And, oddly enough, I’ve found students treat these books with a greater respect – even if they don’t “like” them – than when I was having them purchase such books. I’ve never found a copy of a free book in the trash, whereas I have the ones they’ve paid for – go figure.

Here are several sources I have found for qaulity, free books and some of their authors – and what I mean are those that can be accessed and printed in book form (PDF or like platform), not formatted for web reading only. Something students/readers can print and carry with them.

Certainly, if you know of other such sources, please let me know.

Beard of Bees
Constantin Acosmei, Gregory Fraser, Jacques Roubaud, Rae Armantrout, H. Patrick Glumm, Morten S