ebooks and poetry

[Uncle Robin]

I thought this was an interesting article, I look forward to the reaction of the many design pros here

Hanging Indents and other poetry puzzles

How exciting that the digital publishing world has evolved to the point where we are at last having conversations about design and poetry and accessible layouts. This isn’t the first conversation of this sort, of course, but it is most definitely a sign of maturity in the ebook world.

https://epubsecrets.com/wp-content/u...e-1536x937.jpg

[Quoth]

Poetry, like song or play scripts really needs performed. Some people can get little from it unless it's at least read out loud.

Even old mobi is fine to display the text so it can be read as it can do suitable indents. Some publishers try to be too clever or try to exactly recreate a particular printed text. We certainly don't need illuminated or drop caps, colour or other prettification that merely makes the page look pretty. It's the content, sound, rhythm and meaning that matters.

Read Tennyson or Wordsworth or Shakespeare as if reading normal fiction, then read out loud, then record it dramatically (phone, tablet, PC, cassette etc) and play it back to see what I mean.

Of course some people can read written text as if they are listening to someone brilliant reading out loud. Some people find the smell of old paper or fancy drop caps and illustration greatly add to their experience. IMO poetry ought to be performed, recited or at least spoken.

Probably the only text I've seen that absolutely needs layout not possible on mobi or basic epub is Lewis Carroll's "A mouse's tale" http://bootless.net/mouse.html

"Fury said to
a mouse, That
he met
in the
house,
'Let us
both go
to law:
I will
prosecute
you.—
Come, I'll
take no
denial;
We must
have a
trial:
For
really
this
morning
I've
nothing
to do.'
Said the
mouse to
the cur,
'Such a
trial,
dear sir,
With no
jury or
judge,
would be
wasting
our breath.'
'I'll be
judge,
I'll be
jury,'
Said
cunning
old Fury;
'I'll try
the whole
cause,
and
condemn
you
to
death.' "

But even that could work on mobi if you changed the indent on each line by editing the HTML & CSS in an epub and converting to old mobi.

[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.

[Quoth]

The poem wasn't actually given a title in "Alice in Wonderland". I read it first in a copy my dad was given as child. I think one of the approx 500 books "left behind" on one of our international moves.

[Quoth]

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.

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).

[pdurrant]

The old MOBI format had a special poetry paragraph alignment that was left aligned on the first line, but right aligned on subsequent lines. It didn't get supported in kindle formats, not ePub.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I've done calligraphy in the past.

You keep referring to calligraphy, which is not a big part of the sort of layout/visual design elements the article was addressing. The sort of poets who treat the visual design of their poems as intrinsic to the work are, from what I've read, extremely unlikely to be thinking in terms of features as archaic as drop caps or illuminated manuscripts. And in my brief forays into reading 21st century poetry over the last couple of years, the ebook anthologies I read were very far from free.

The fact that you personally consider poetry to be primarily a spoken art form is quite frankly irrelevant to the article I linked to, which is all about whether a poet's own intended visual layout can be achieved in ebooks.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

The fact that you personally consider poetry to be primarily a spoken art form is quite frankly irrelevant to the article I linked to, which is all about whether a poet's own intended visual layout can be achieved in ebooks.

I said the publishing as ebooks was free, not the consumption. I use Calligraphy, drop caps and illumination purely as the extreme example of layout. Any poem without those extremes can certainly be done as an ebook with close to paper layout for about 20 years. However smaller screens can be a problem.

I've an entire shelf of printed poetry. Many famous collections. I don't see anything that can't be done close enough in nearly 20 yo mobi format.

Perhaps you could link the article rather than a screen shot? Maybe I'm misunderstanding something.

I did say I understand the visual impact is important for some. But the content, rhythm, delivery and meaning is more important than nuances of layout for most people. Who exactly are these poets obsessing over nuances of layout not possible in old mobi or basic epub? Like what percentage of successfully published poets?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Perhaps you could link the article rather than a screen shot? Maybe I'm misunderstanding something.

The link to the original article is: Hanging Indents and other poetry puzzles

[Quoth]

Ta!

I'm sure it was an accident that it wasn't there.

[Quoth]

Actually the article isn't really about poetry, but that some people are formatting ebooks badly. No surprise. Most people don't use a wordprocessor properly.

There isn't any difficulty with doing indents to suit poetry, not even in .mobi, which is what I wrote.

The examples are stuff no proper ebook formatting of any content should use:

Never
Add more than one space
Space at start or end of a paragraph
Tabs
blank / empty lines

I search and remove all those!
Decent paragraph styles in a wodrprocessor does the correct CSS + HTML, or if you are using Sigil or Calibre directly, then proper CSS & HTML.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by DNSB

The link to the original article is: Hanging Indents and other poetry puzzles

Thanks! I have previously posted just a link, as you did here, and being chided for not including an extract. So this time, I included the first paragraph and the link and STILL got chided

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Perhaps you could link the article rather than a screen shot?

Wrong link, sorry

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

Thanks! I have previously posted just a link, as you did here, and being chided for not including an extract. So this time, I included the first paragraph and the link and STILL got chided

Tails, you lose. Heads, you lose.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

Wrong link, sorry

It's OK.
I appreciated the intention and now it's sorted. It's amazing how many BOUGHT ebooks have been nearly unreadable due to bad formatting or in some cases zero spell check & proof reading. I report them if very bad, then fix them.