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How to structure and style large poetic productions

The presentation of poems can take various styles and forms. Unlike prose, the structure of a poem adds additional meaning through indentations, line breaks, caesuras, spacing, and even the shape of the text. Here is a guide to help with some of poetry’s less intuitive formatting.

Table of Contents

  1. Splitting files

    1. A single collections file

    2. Multiple files

  2. Unusual formatting

    1. Verse paragraphs

    2. Caesuras

    3. Dropped lines

  1. Splitting files

    Unlike prose, short poems are not placed in individual files like chapters. The rule of thumb is to split poetic productions by the highest-level division(s) possible. A production can result in a single collections file of an author’s short poems or multiple files for longer poetic works, like long narrative poems, that have main divisions.

    A single collections file

    For most poetry collections, they utilize a single collections file that contains all of an author’s short poems, ordered by date of publication. If the collection is made up of multiple books, you don’t need to group the poems by the books’ titles. This file is named poetry.xhtml and has a <title> element with the value Poetry.

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops" epub:prefix="z3998: http://www.daisy.org/z3998/2012/vocab/structure/, se: https://standardebooks.org/vocab/1.0" xml:lang="en-US"> <head> <title>Poetry</title> <link href="../css/core.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/> <link href="../css/local.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/> </head> <body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction"> <article id="imitation-of-spenser" epub:type="z3998:poem"> <h2 epub:type="title">Imitation of Spenser</h2> <p> <span>...</span> </p> </article> <article id="on-death" epub:type="z3998:poem"> <h2 epub:type="title">On Death</h2> <p> <span>...</span> </p> </article> ... </body> </html>

    Multiple files

    In the world of poetry, long narrative poems are a unique form of expression that often use books or cantos as the main divisions, serving a similar purpose to chapters in a novel. These divisions are placed in their own individual files. These files have both chapter and z3998:poem semantics.

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops" epub:prefix="z3998: http://www.daisy.org/z3998/2012/vocab/structure/, se: https://standardebooks.org/vocab/1.0" xml:lang="en-GB"> <head> <title>Book I</title> <link href="../css/core.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/> <link href="../css/local.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/> </head> <body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction"> <section id="book-1" epub:type="chapter z3998:poem"> <header> <h2> <span epub:type="label">Book</span> <span epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">I</span> </h2> <p epub:type="bridgehead">The Trojans, after a seven years’ voyage...</p> </header> <p> <span>...</span> </p> </section> </body> </html>

  2. Unusual formatting

    Poetry is a diverse art form that offers a wide range of distinctive types, each with its own unique visual appeal. In fact, poetry can take on various unconventional formats that add to its artistic charm. Below are some uncommon formatting styles you may come across while producing a poetry production.

    Verse paragraphs

    In poetic composition, some authors opt to use stanzas of varying length. While traditional poetry forms such as sonnets and haikus have a set structure, free verse poetry allows poets to experiment with different stanza lengths. To visually differentiate between stanzas, some poets choose to remove the blank space between them and instead indent the first line of each subsequent stanza (excluding the first stanza). This technique serves a similar function to paragraphs in prose.

    Each stanza is indented, similar to paragraphs.

    With a clever CSS selector, you don’t need to add the i1 class to each stanza. To remove spacing between stanzas, delete [epub|type~="z3998:poem"] p + p{ margin-top: 1em; } that’s provided by the SEMoS.

    <p> <span>O Goddess! Sing the wrath of Peleus’ son,</span> <br/> <span>...</span> <br/> <span>And great Achilles, parted first as foes.</span> </p> <p> <span>Which of the gods put strife between the chiefs,</span> <br/> <span>...</span> <br/> <span>Of Atreus, the two leaders of the host:⁠—</span> </p> ...
    [epub|type~="z3998:poem"] p + p > span:first-child{ padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -1em; }

    Caesuras

    In poetry, a caesura is a pause or break in a verse that marks the end of one phrase and the beginning of another. This pause can be expressed by a large space and is used by poets to create a rhythmic effect in their work.

    Each line is split into two phrases separated by a large space.

    In the files, wrap each phrase in a <span> element inside of the <span> element that represents the complete verse line.

    <p> <span> <span>To us, in olden legends,</span> <span>is many a marvel told</span> </span> <br/> <span> <span>Of praise-deserving heroes,</span> <span>of labours manifold,</span> </span> <br/> <span> <span>Of weeping and of wailing,</span> <span>of joy and festival;</span> </span> <br/> <span> <span>Ye shall of bold knights’ battling</span> <span>now hear a wondrous tale.</span> </span> </p>
    span > span:first-child{ margin-right: 1.5em; }

    Dropped lines

    A dropped line is a stylistic technique in which a single line of verse is divided into two or three distinct phrases. This technique is similar to the use of caesuras, although it differs in that the breaks do not appear in every line, and the phrases themselves are separated by line breaks rather than a large space.

    When dealing with two separate phrases, the parent <span> has a class="dl2" attribute.

    This is an example of a dropped line with two phrases.
    ... <span>Rooms in the house for sleeping. The old men</span> <br/> <span class="dl2"> <span>And ladies slept within the mansion.</span> <span>Thaddeus</span> </span> <br/> <span>Received command to lead the younger men</span> ...
    .dl2 span:first-child{ vertical-align: 100%; }

    In the rare case that a line is broken into three phrases, the parent <span> has a class="dl3" attribute.

    This is an example of a dropped line with three phrases.
    ... <span>But blow one blaring trumpet note of sun</span> <br/> <span class="dl3"> <span>To go with me</span> <span>to the darkness</span> <span>where I go.</span> </span> ...
    .dl3 span:first-child{ vertical-align: 200%; } .dl3 span:nth-child(2){ vertical-align: 100%; }