Help:Poetry

Line indentation and linebreaks
There are three methods for formatting poetry. Ppoem (for Proper Poem) automatically does most of the formatting. Wikisource also includes a built-in poem extension, invoked by, that allows for simple formatting. Alternatively, it is possible to specify each indent and line break manually. Each of these methods has its advantages and disadvantages. The poem extension is simple to use but limited, manual formatting leaves the most freedom for special cases, and Ppoem (the most recently-designed) brings some of the advantages of each.

Ppoem
Ppoem's default settings are tuned to common poetry formatting conventions, and through its minimal and straightforward syntax it can handle many common formatting issues, so it can be easy for beginners and serviceable for more experienced editors. It is believed to be relatively stable and suitable for most common poem usages. The template uses Lua (with Scribunto).

It keeps the line breaks, and two line breaks make a stanza break.

Colons at the beginning of lines are transformed into one em-long gaps.

It has a hanging indent of 4em by default.

For example,

renders as

For poems continuing on multiple pages, the and  parameters control how sections join up. The value of the end parameter at the end of a page should match the value of the start parameter on the following page. Parameter values can be:  (which is the default), ,   and  :


 * For the first section, use (or omit the parameter)
 * For a section that ends a stanza, use, and start the next one with
 * For a section that doesn't end a stanza (so the next section continues in the same stanza), the first section sets and the next uses.
 * For a line that continues onto the next page, the first section sets and the next uses.
 * For the last section, use (or omit).

It means that for a simple poem that contains only a single section on one page of a text, it is unnecessary to use the start or end parameters at all.

Poem extension
A software extension on Wikisource simplifies indentation and linebreaks. Wrap a poem inside &lt;poem&gt; tags; the linebreaks and indentation will be displayed as it is typed. A colon at the beginning of the line will indent the line 1em. For example, see this code and how it renders:

And oft by yon blue gushing stream
 * Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head,

And feed deep thought with many a dream,
 * And lingering pause, and lightly tread,–
 * Fond wretch! as if her step disturb'd the dead!

will render as:

And oft by yon blue gushing stream
 * Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head,

And feed deep thought with many a dream,
 * And lingering pause, and lightly tread,–
 * Fond wretch! as if her step disturb'd the dead!

Spaces between verses within tags will be rendered as two line breaks (

) instead of a paragraph break. Lines within these tags will not wrap if they exceed the width of the containing block. If you wish to avoid these behaviours, use direct formatting as described below.

The tag cannot be used across page breaks, and must be terminated on one page and re-opened on the next (i.e. not used in the header or footer of a page). If a stanza break coincides with a page break, can be used to ensure correct formatting on transclusion (e.g.):

Page one: … Stanza one.

Page two: Stanza two. …

Direct formatting
The alternative is to use gap or em and &lt;br /&gt;. The gap's default size is 2em, but, can be configured with a size parameter. It is recommended to use em as the unit for the size parameter:

And oft by yon blue gushing stream

Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head,

And feed deep thought with many a dream,

And lingering pause, and lightly tread,–

Fond wretch! as if her step disturb'd the dead!

will render as:

And oft by yon blue gushing stream

Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head,

And feed deep thought with many a dream,

And lingering pause, and lightly tread,–

Fond wretch! as if her step disturb'd the dead!

This style can use any other formatting template, for example:

will render as:

Note that block center accepts style= parameters, so that it is possible to create the same effect with fewer templates. For example, the use of smaller in the previous example can be achieved by setting the style as

See the documentation for block center for additional information.

Centering
Typeset poems are often centered on the page, but retain left alignment. This is hard to achieve with "normal" formatting (center will center each line separately).

Ppoem
With Ppoem, text is block-centered and aligned (by default at the left, can be changed with ).

The template also has a special markup, that contains, and  , that respectively center and right-align a line or stanza when put at the beginning.

Example:

renders as

Center block
Use center block (CSS formatting) or block center (table formatting) to align a poem to the center as a block:

And oft by yon blue gushing stream

Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head,

And feed deep thought with many a dream,

And lingering pause, and lightly tread,–

Fond wretch! as if her step disturb'd the dead!

will render as:

And oft by yon blue gushing stream

Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head,

And feed deep thought with many a dream,

And lingering pause, and lightly tread,–

Fond wretch! as if her step disturb'd the dead!

If you choose to use block formatting with &lt;poem&gt; tags, it is suggested that the &lt;poem&gt; tags be placed inside the block formatting template. For example:

And oft by yon blue gushing stream
 * Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head,

And feed deep thought with many a dream,
 * And lingering pause, and lightly tread,–
 * Fond wretch! as if her step disturb'd the dead!

will render as:

And oft by yon blue gushing stream
 * Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head,

And feed deep thought with many a dream,
 * And lingering pause, and lightly tread,–
 * Fond wretch! as if her step disturb'd the dead!

Note: This style of formatting does not work well where the poem spans multiple pages as the width of the block is based on the width of the longest line (or page if the line wraps). To achieve alignment across multiple pages, the start and end are controlled by Center block/s and Center block/e in main. See documentation for instructions.

Line numbering
For long works without numbered stanzas, it may be useful to add line numbers to the text for the convenience of those readers who wish to cite particular lines or passages. No single standard for this kind of markup has emerged on Wikisource yet.

Ppoem
With Ppoem, line numbers can be put at the end of a line with  (add to end of line), and to the left with   (insert at beginning of line). For example:

gives

Pline
One method is to mark each fifth line in a small green font, to the right of the end of the line (so as not to interfere with the indentation). Each line number also includes an HTML anchor to facilitate direct linking. For example:

… If night is mute, yet the returning sun Kindles the voices of the morning birds; Nor at thy bidding less exultingly Than birds rejoicing in the golden day, The Anarchies of Africa unleash Their tempest-winged cities of the sea, To speak in thunder to the rebel world. …

will render as:

… If night is mute, yet the returning sun Kindles the voices of the morning birds; Nor at thy bidding less exultingly Than birds rejoicing in the golden day, The Anarchies of Africa unleash Their tempest-winged cities of the sea, To speak in thunder to the rebel world. …

Note that the line numbers are a few spaces after the end of the line. The numbers can also be aligned to the left or right of the page (or block, if it is within one) by adding the  or   parameter to the pline template.

will render as:

Ppoem
CSS properties (see Help:Page styles) can be added to the whole poem with.

On the other hand, {MyClass} at the beginning of a line/stanza will apply the class MyClass (that needs to be defined somewhere) to that text. Example:

renders as

(Here, the colour is from and the size differences are from the {class} notation.)

Poem extension
This is often very useful when the poem is among text within a book, or when there is a centered title. Note that in this situation it can be useful to add CSS styling to the poem tag. For example smaller text would be coded:

will render as:

Or code the style directly into the block center template using the style= parameter. See that template's documentation for examples.

Note: usage of    templates with  , e.g. smaller, will cause a so-called Lint error (flagged in Special:LintErrors as a misc-tidy-replacement-issues div-span-flip, see ).

Although not recommended vs. the alternatives above, if this kind of formatting is applied, a    template shall be used, e.g. smaller block.

Prefer:

over:

Floating quotation mark
Some poems use a "floating" quotation mark (or any other character) which is at the beginning of the poem, but does not necessarily belong in the block of text. For example:

To achieve this, use the Floating quotation mark (short version: Fqm) template:

Note: This template can be used to float other characters with various sized gaps. Please see Fqm for usage instructions.

Naming different versions
See Naming conventions for more information on naming.

Poems often have ambiguous titles or are referred to only by their incipit; different versions also require disambiguation.


 * 1) Versions. If multiple editions of a text are hosted here, link those to and from the versions page.
 * 2) Disambiguation. The titles of poems are frequently ambiguous, different works with the same title should be linked from a disambiguation page. This is usually a poem by a different author.
 * 3) Titles. Poems can be created using the 'plain title' for the page's name, or distinguished from similar titles by year or author in parentheses. Adding a poem as a subpage of the work is preferable, the advantages of which increase with the degree of complexity and ambiguity.
 * 4) Redirects. Create redirects of title variations to the poems title or a versions page.

Any combination of these should assist a reader to find a page perhaps one of several versions amongst the works with similar titles Use the header and its notes section to show the authority of a version, detailing the primary source, and the talk for expanded discussion of the text.
 * The Raven and Other Poems/The Raven (1845 ed.)
 * The Raven (Poe) (versions page)
 * The Raven. (disambiguation page)

Creating a table of contents linking poems with plain titles should be avoided. The situation arises where the same poem is presented as appearing in two or more versions, perhaps a revised edition, and a misleading reference.

Poems often appear in a number of variations, perhaps significant, inclusion of these variants is left to the discretion of the contributor. Later contributions to poetry hosted by Wikisource may be derived from different sources, however, all documents at the site should identify their source precisely.

Text integrity is best maintained by using original scans, as described in help page, most poems are easily available in a number of variants. A complete book scan, even if only partly transcribed, is verifiable, easily corrected, and provides direct access to the source. The remaining contents of the scans can be easily finished by other contributors.

Assistance in uploading and preparing scan indexes, and with subpages, is available.

Summary:
 * Find a scan or other authoritative source for the poem. Create a version of the work as a subpage of a volume. Link it to similar titles. Ask for help and examples, if needed.