What's the indent rule of poetry?
I've seen people indent their poems like below:
Writing on wall
It was just plane writing on wall
I must have taken it a serious call
She was on and off repeating same thing
There was hidden message through somethingThere may be long wait
All dependants on fate
How can one think and rate?
It is difficult to state
Or I've seen some like this:
Writing on wall
It was just plane writing on wall
__I must have taken it a serious call
She was on and off repeating same thing
__There was hidden message through somethingThere may be long wait
__All dependants on fate
How can one think and rate?
__It is difficult to state
Is there other possibilities? When should I use which?
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/2004. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
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.
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