V E R S E ❦ I M A G E

Poetry Formatting in WordPress

Are you frustrated when you try to re-create complex line formatting in a WordPress post?

Sure, you can right / left / center justify a paragraph, and you can “add indent” to a paragraph, but unless you open the hood and get grease on your hands writing HTML, you can’t add tabs or spaces to a line to get it to look like this:

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The damselfly hovers,
+++ lays her eggs
++++++ in the sky
+++++++++ of pond,

her abdomen
+++ a slender J
++++++ pierces
+++++++++ the mirror.

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Instead after you save your draft and preview the screen here’s how it looks:

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The damselfly hovers,
lays her eggs
in the sky
of pond,

her abdomen
a slender J
pierces
the mirror.

.     .     .     .     .

How pedestrian. How constipated.

Here’s my fix: clunky but effective. Tell me your fix if it’s better!

1 – ADD CHARACTERS TO THE SPACES OR TABS YOU WANT TO INSERT INTO THE LINE:

The damselfly hovers,
+++ lays her eggs
++++++ in the sky
+++++++++ of pond,

her abdomen
+++ a slender J
++++++ pierces
+++++++++ the mirror.

Here I’m using THREE +’s for each tab grouping; use more, fewer, any character you like.
I am also adding a [SPACE] after each grouping of +’s to make it easier to highlight them later.

2 – ONE AT A TIME, HIGHLIGHT EACH GROUPING OF +’S YOU WANT TO TRANSFORM

3 – CHANGE THE FONT COLOR TO “WHITE”

Click the small down arrow next to the A for Font and select the White square

Note – if your blog uses a background color OTHER than white, then instead of white you need to change the font color to your background color!

4 – CONTINUE FOR EACH GROUPING . . .
++++++++ SAVE DRAFT . . .
++++++++++++++++ PREVIEW . . .
++++++++++++++++++++++++ VOILA!

You can speckle random text all over the screen using this technique.

There must be a better way (short of learning to write code), but I haven’t found it!

Here’s the entire poem, which appeared in a slightly different version in my chapbook RIVERSTORY : TREESTORY published by the Orchard Street Press, © 2018

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Light

The damselfly hovers,
+++ lays her eggs
++++++ in the sky
+++++++++ of pond,

her abdomen
+++ a slender J
++++++ pierces
+++++++++ the mirror.

+++ Once.
+++ Again.
+++ One egg.
+++ Another.

Light as a morning
+++ kiss, light
++++++ as the voice

that ripples
+++ between
++++++ these lines,

+++ airy, watchful,

let no hungry trout
+++ swirl, lunge,
++++++ swallow
+++++++++ their maker.

+++ One.
+++ Another.
+++ Again.
+++ And tomorrow

these words become
+++ creatures
++++++ with silver wings

+++++++++ that rise
++++++++++++ into light.

from RIVERSTORY : TREESTORY, The Orchard Street Press, © 2018 Bill Griffin

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