← Poetry Codex

The site

Poetry Codex (poetrycodex.com) is a free reading archive of poetry in the public domain, run by an international group of academics. Using the site means accepting these terms. Questions: admin@poetrycodex.com.

The poems and translations

The archive holds only texts that, as far as Poetry Codex can establish, are in the public domain: poets who died long ago, and editions and translations published before 1931. Each text names its source edition and translator. You may read, copy, quote and share these texts freely. Copyright law differs from country to country, so whether a text is free where you live is for you to judge. If you hold the rights in a text on the site, or believe it is still protected, write to admin@poetrycodex.com and it will be looked at promptly and removed if the claim is right.

The site's own material

The design of the site, the notes, introductions and selections written for it, and the readings produced by its reading engine belong to Poetry Codex. You may quote them for study, teaching and criticism with a reference to Poetry Codex and the page's address; please do not republish them wholesale.

The reading engine

Some readings and glosses on the site are written by an AI model at the reader's request. They are offered as prompts for thought, not as authority: they can be mistaken, and they should be checked against the text and against published scholarship before they are relied on or cited.

Reader accounts

Signing in is optional and free. An account is for one person and is opened with a Google account; you are responsible for what is done through it. What you save stays private to you. You can delete your account at any time on the account page, and Poetry Codex may close an account that is used to harm the site or other people. What is kept, and how, is described in Privacy and personal data.

Fair use of the site

• Do not try to break, overload or get around the site's protections, or reach other readers' data.
• Automated copying of the whole archive should be gentle (a few requests a second at most); the texts themselves are free, but the site's servers are paid for.
• Do not use the reading engine to produce material unrelated to reading poetry.

No guarantee

The texts are transcribed with care from old editions, but errors happen: the site is offered as it is, without any guarantee that it is complete, correct or always available. Poetry Codex may change, pause or end any part of it (the reading engine has been paused before). To the extent the law allows, Poetry Codex is not liable for loss arising from the use of the site; nothing here limits rights you have as a consumer under the law of your country.

Changes

These terms may be updated; the date above shows the latest version, and continuing to use the site means accepting it.