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Because a poem is more compact than prose, indentation (and line breaks, spacing, leading, and anything else you can think of) can add additional meaning to the poem. So unlike prose, go ahead and ...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-13T11:59:56Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/2014 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T01:21:55Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/2014 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
Because a poem is more compact than prose, indentation (and line breaks, spacing, leading, and anything else you can think of) can add additional meaning to the poem. So unlike prose, go ahead and indent however you like... as long as there's a reason for it. In your second example, if the poet likes the idea of pairing the couplets visually, that's the reason for the indent. In John Smithers's excellent example, you can see how breaks and indentations create a much different poem than the plain straightforward verse in your first example. Neither is _wrong._ They are just expressing slightly different things.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2011-03-15T16:10:18Z (over 13 years ago)
Original score: 13