HOW TO SET OUT A POEM ON A PAGE

M

maz

I am creating a poem in word document and wish to know the correct fomat in
to precent it for marking
 
P

Pat Garard

G'Day Maz,

There is no "correct" format for Poem Layout (although it is usual to
capitalise the first word of each line) - the layout should contribute
creatively to the sense or feeling of the poem.

Your professor may have his or her preferences.

You might focus on your spelling, though ...
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

Here's how I do it, assuming that each line of the poem is left-aligned
(that is, alternate lines are not indented):

1. Type the entire poem, pressing Shift+Enter (line break) at the end of
each line and Enter (paragraph break) at the end of each stanza.

2. Select the entire poem and apply some Spacing After (Format | Paragraph)
so that the stanzas are separated.

3. Drag the left indent marker on the ruler until the poem is visually
centered (do not use Center alignment); this is tricky if some of the lines
are very long, but make it so that the average line length looks centered.

I generally define a Poetry style to handle these properties, but if I'm
typing a lot of poems with lines of varying length, then I drag the indents
as needed for each poem.
 
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