free format

[Senna Jawa]

If you are willing to post your poems via the online Literotica editor, then the first thing you may do is to copy the text between the star lines below into the editor's text window:

******************************
<pre><font size="2" face="Courier New"><b>





</b></font>
your name &#38copy;

</pre>
********************************

Just replace "your name" by your name.

Then type your poem below the first line ("<pre><font...). All indentations and line breaks will be preserved.

If you have qs just ask (and the superLaurel will have fun answering them or else I will).

Try it, you'll like it.

(Isn't it the second time that I am proposing it)?

 

[Angeline]

(Isn't it the second time that I am proposing it)?

I don't recall seeing this before, but it is great to know and a gift to receive this info! Thank you Senna!

 

[karmadog]

I certainly appreciate that you did this, but I want you to explain why special spacing and line breaks are important.

I've always been a little puzzled by all that.


What's the big excitement?

 

[Senna Jawa]

the format/graphical aspect of a poem

[...] I want you to explain why special spacing and line breaks are important.

I've always been a little puzzled by all that.


What's the big excitement?

KarmaDog, this is a very good question, requiring a serious effort to answer it properly, and that's the only reason that I didn't answer promptly and still am not ready to give it full justice.

As a mimimum, I like poems to look aesthetically, so that I have a pleasure to read them. I dislike sloppy eyesores. In particular, as you had many chances to observe it, I always take care of having a reasonable left margin (indentation). I need light (space) around the text. I like also a proper distance between the title and the poem, then between the poem and the signature underneath (if any--sometimes the author's name appears at the top).

Sometimes a long column of stanzas seems to me boring, and I feel like varying the indentation of different stanzas.

Thus the general aesthetics is the first reason for a proper editing tool.

Next come the author wishes to suggest a special way of reading the poem, both for the purpose of reciting it properly (the stops, the accents), and for a more precise understanding of the text, for varied ways of emphasising or deemphasising certain phrases, etc.

And again, the different indentation of different stanzas may signal optically a conceptual subdivision of the poem. E.g. different voices in the poem may be associated with different indentations. Or different moods. Etc.

Finally, some authors go beyond the standard realm of poetry and they actually take advantage of the graphic potential of the way the text looks. Then you have more than just pure poetry. It is mixed with visual art.

Some authors did weird things, e.g. the text follows an entangled, wiggly curve instead of going a line after a line. Others get, out of the ascii characters (just letters, with or without the punktuation marks) a picture, an image, say of a shell or a fruit. The great Keiko Imaoka would do it on rare occasions, and Sere, who used to participate on rec.arts.poems was just incredible in this respect. In one case her text formed a fraction of a face, just a few, not too long (rather short) lines of text. It was an incredibly subtle image. You could tell that it was a black face with thick lips, there was a tooth or a couple of them, one of them being a canine tooth, reflecting light, perhaps there was a bit of saliva. It was like a painting done with a thick brush, when thick strokes give the utmost subtle results (I've seen such paintings--three thick crude strokes of the brush and you have a subtle image of the eye, with the all details around, and a gleem in the eye).

I did occasionally just a bit of this. For instance, I had the word "Alps" shaped into a small mountain (the letters going up and down), and "Himalayas" as a bigger, higher mountain. Oh, on literotica I should mention that one of my poems had the shape of an erected phallus. Another visualized a cliff. I did a couple of times an arrangment of two poems side by side, which also formed a single poem, when you were reading each line across all the way from left to right (one poem had lines A1 A2 A3..., the other B1 B2 B3..., and the total poem had lines A1B1 A2B2 A3B3...) Many people did things like this or similar. But let me mention a highly interesting, profound and original instance:

Lucjan Feldman has written two very nice poems which were truly and naturally 2-dimensional, because one was a geographic map of a city, and another one was a newspaper. These poems were not meant to be read in any linear order, just like maps and newspapers are not.

The whole issue is interesting. How much of the poem's presentation should be under poet's control, and how much should be left to the presentators like publishers, etc. (Comparisons with the music are here inevitable).

One time I read in a local library an old English poem with long lines broken into somewhat irregular, short staircase stages. It is a popular poem but to me it was the first time I read it and it made on me a great impression. But the original most likely had standard, regular lines.

Poems in non-alphabetic languages have different format from English poems. When translated, the decision has to be made about their format. On each occasion the format for the same poem might be different.

This and other considerations make one think of what is the essence of a poem and what is transitional. This question goes beyond graphics (format).

(Now let me post this. I am sorry for typos and errors. I may edit them out later).

Best regards,

 

[Blue Dolphin]

I am totally lost as to what this means
post poems where
please
can you elaborate with some clarity for a thicko Englishman
thank you in advance
BD

 

[Rybka]

Word spacing in poems

I certainly appreciate that you did this, but I want you to explain why special spacing and line breaks are important.

I've always been a little puzzled by all that.

What's the big excitement?

Is the Mona Lisa merely paint dabbed on canvas? Of course not!
The order/spacing of the dabs create a visual image. Just as words in a poem create a mental image.
But what about the smile that has been discussed so many times? It is subtle and stirs the mind.
Spacing and order in written works may be seen as the converse.
As E.E. Cummings said, "Paper is just blank canvas for the pictures of words."

Regards,                       Rybka

 

[karmadog]

In nearly every case, the use of special spacing and, especially, making a poem in the shape of the picture strikes me as cheap tricks--something on the order of dotting an 'i' with a heart or smiley face--or, worse, irrelevant.

Senna did mention some valid points: "the author wishes to suggest a special way of reading the poem"

"different voices in the poem may be associated with different indentations."

These things make sense to me. Also what he mentioned about pleasing margins and such.

 

[Senna Jawa]

In nearly every case, the use of special spacing and, especially, making a poem in the shape of the picture strikes me as cheap tricks--something on the order of dotting an 'i' with a heart or smiley face--or, worse, irrelevant.

Since you were careful to qualify your statement with "In nearly..." I agree with you. Some authors are able to raise high above that level. I mentioned the profound, integral ideas by Lucjan Feldman. I'll also try to google Sere's poem "Lover" (I think) on rec.arts.poems (around 1990-91, perhaps 91, I am not sure). Also Keiko Imaoka's poem with a touch of graphics was also in good taste.

On Literotica our Rybka is into searching for different ways of expression. Once things click for him, when they unite, he may get something very interesting. I should watch him more But I think that centralizing lines is most of the time counter-productive. When you do the standard formatting you already have an irregular right hand edge. Having two of them symmetrically is to me tiring and boring most of the time. I would avoid symmetry.

Regards,