Quote:
Originally Posted by Uncle Robin
I have read several interviews with poets who would disagree vigorously with the idea that layout doesn't matter. To some poets, the visual appearance of their poems is an integral and indispensable part of the whole process. They don't tend to be the sort of poems that I enjoy, but they are visual art works as much as verbal ones.
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Yes, there are plenty of novelists too, ask Hitch.
I know it matters to some people, but also most layout wanted by poets has been available since mobi, since before Kindles. Not on older formats used on Palm and Symbian (Mobipockect since 2000, not .mobi format). Amazon bought Mobipocket in 2004 and didn't sell Kindles till 2007.
So, the indenting and line wrap certainly possible for maybe 20 years.
I'm certainly not going to get into an argument with a poet that claims the layout (other than what mobi can do) is so vitally important vs how important hearing the poem is.
For the last 200 years it's been hard to get a book published and read.
For the last 10+ years it's been free to publish as an etext.
But publishing poems has always been much harder. Now the challenge is having anyone read them as publishing an ebook collection is free. The totally egotistical poet can insist on an EXACT paper copying layout and then most people with eink can't consume it, only people with larger Android & iOS tablets.
I've done calligraphy in the past. It's the ultimate visual impact writing as visual art and now can be published in colour as POD or as a PDF for a tablet. I only ever did it for myself. That's were some of the poets are going and they forget that for maybe 8000 to 9000 years the spoken verse was the thing, and for most it still is. Writing verse or stories is only a mechanical method of distribution rather than in person. Since the late 1900s replaced or complemented by the gramophone and in last 20 years by mp3 or other audio files. I wonder how many use a quill or a typewriter. I have both, but use laptop (sage & elips have replaced Jota on my Android phone).