Former US poet laureate Billy Collins recenntly expressed concern about the way poems are formatted on ebook readers like the Kindle and iPad. Rather than breaking a line and indenting the continuation if the line's too long, the carry-over goes flush left. This works fine for prose, but for poems with longer lines, this can get annoying, and could even ruin the poetic encounter with the electronic page. The left image is what a poem might look like on a Kindle, compared to the much more pleasing prose on the right.
(image from harriet)
A blogger at Huffington Post expresses a desire to retain formatting as if it were a bound book:
Obviously, the ideal situation would be for the e-book conversions to go smoothly and preserve the layout of the published books, but all reports seem to indicate what we've got now (ugly and sparse) is what we'll have for at least a year or two. No one in the eBook marketplace has yet put poetry front and center on the priorities list, and since the Collected Larry Eigner, lovely as it may be, is not likely to burn up the best seller list, it's hard to imagine anyone with a monied stake in the game re-prioritizing any time soon.
This certainly makes sense for works that are previously published in bound books and journals, but I'm not sure if it's possible. Bound books and ebooks are different mediums. It's analogous to reading a novel and then watching the film adaptation. Novels & films are different beasts, and each have to be approached differently by the artist.
If poets are looking for poems to retain they're original hard copy format, then I would say it is up the the poet and publisher to ensure the formatting is correct before they release it for specific devices. In journals and books it is acceptable to break a line to fit it to the page width, but customarily the segments that have been carried over to the next line are indented in substantially. Certainly this adaptation to the small page could be continued with the small screen.
Still, there are many writers and readers of poetry who are wary about ebooks.
The original story about Collins and his Kindle includes some other poets' reflections:
"I have mixed feelings about poetry and e-books," says award-winning poet Edward Hirsch, whose "The Living Fire" came out in March in hardcover, but not as an electronic text. "I don't think it's the best way to read poetry myself and I wouldn't want to read it on the e-book, but it also seems important to have poetry available wherever possible."
Robert Pinsky is slightly more eager.
"On the whole, poetry is well suited for electronic media," says Pinsky, a frequent Slate contributor. He is confident the technical problems can be fixed, but that adds that besides the problems with portable e-readers, "most word processors treat verse as though each line were a paragraph.
"So, for example, typing a Wallace Stevens poem with capital letters at the beginning of the lines can be mildly annoying," Pinsky says.
I don't believe these formatting problems mean poets should keep away from the ereader platform. Instead, it is impetus for us to adapt. Photographers didn't complain (too much) about viewing images on computer screens rather than a glossy print when the personal computer came onto the scene; they just adapted to the new medium, while also continuing to print on photo paper. Similarly, poets can add ereaders as a new medium to be explored, rather than blaming it for ruining poetry. It is possible to write in short lines or to publish in landscape. Perhaps this will spark a revisioning of the way poems are written, just like the internet gave us hypertext and flarf poetry.
Poetry Foundation's Harriet blog reports about Collins' concern, reviews a few ereaders, and links to some advice on formatting poetry for this new platform.
As a publisher of one poetry ebook, I have been wondering about the relationship between text and reader on electronic devices. My book,
Poems That Should Never Be Read In Church is out in pdf format, which can be read on computer and ereader screens. I have not come across any formatting problems reading it from my laptop screen, so you can rest assured that you will be able to read it on your computer. As for Kindles and iPads, it may take some more work to make it readable.
