Quote:
Originally Posted by Taylor514ce
Many poems deliberately break their lines in such a way as to "tug against" the meaning. It's an intentional poetic device known as "enjambment". Any formatting would have to respect the enjambment and/or closure of the lines. Closure and enjambment are used to build and release tension in a poem.
The we have other structures, verses, strophes, and so on, that must also be respected.
The line breaks and formatting for example in Richard Wilbur's "Love Calls Us to the Things of the World" are very finely nuanced, and not arbitrary at all. The "white space", blank lines, and various indentations are finely calculated and are as much a part of the poem as the words themselves.
jgray has quite an undertaking...
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The only line breaks that I eliminated were the ones that seemed to be a result of the publisher trying to fit the page margins. All other formatting I kept. I did re-join stanzas that spanned pages, however.
As for the undertaking, yes, it was a job, but it is finished. You are obviously a lover of poetry, so please have a look at "Forest Runes". I didn't care for some of the poems, but several are quite good IMHO.