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Q&A Having a character quote an entire stanza of a poem

I am working on a long form fiction item. In this one of the characters will quote the first stanza from a poem. Normally with speech, one opens quotes, adds the text, and closes quotes. However I ...

1 answer  ·  posted 8y ago by Matthew Brown aka Lord Matt‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T04:45:09Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/19564
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Matthew Brown aka Lord Matt‭ · 2019-12-08T04:45:09Z (over 4 years ago)
I am working on a long form fiction item. In this one of the characters will quote the first stanza from a poem. Normally with speech, one opens quotes, adds the text, and closes quotes. However I do not wish to run the lines of the poem on to each other as I would like the reader to be able to appreciate the poem too. Thus far this has never been a problem as when citing poems; I format them as the author has, as inserts.

Doing that would have every line opening with quotes (but not closing) which I feel would look silly but not having the new paragraph/line quotes would break standard... ?

How can I present the poem being quoted and make it clear that it is the character speaking without making the poem hard to read in way that a publisher would find acceptable and a reader would not find confusing?

**TL;DR - I want a character to quote a poem in speech and have the poem still read as such, while maintaining standard dialogue formatting.**

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2015-11-02T12:42:53Z (over 8 years ago)
Original score: 5