Regular readers will know I’m in a poetry circle called the Wyverns. When we meet, we offer critiques about each other’s work, which has usually been written during the month leading up to the meeting. I find it keeps me penning new material on a regular basis.
This month’s submission was more unusual one. Last month, I went with a couple of pals to a club night in Glasgow and inspiration struck while I was on the dancefloor, so I moved to the side and wrote about twelve fragmented lines, matching the mood of the room.
At the weekend, it was time to edit the piece and send it around the other members.
On account of the fragmentation, my original plan was to turn it into a concrete poem, forming an explosion or a word cloud. This proved to difficult to translate onto the page. While experimenting with different arrangements, I hit upon the idea of varying the font size of each line instead. That worked a treat, meaning the four most important lines are in 22-point text, while the rest are 18 or 20 points. I sent three versions to the group: one in plain text, another in RTF format, and a third coded in HTML.
I don’t generally seek to format my poetry in anything but plain text, but it’s not completely unknown.
While looking for other examples, I found one from two years ago where the poetry was placed on a circular transit-like map. It made sense here not to have a fixed beginning nor end because the topic was about the transit of the seasons. There was also an older one where the poetry was placed inside an animated PowerPoint presentation. However, this was an experiment inspired by an artist pal rather than particularly suiting the piece.
In the case of this most recent poem, I believe the presentation adds an extra layer of impact. I’ve already received a couple of responses from the Wyverns, but we’ll see how it actually goes down at the meeting.
Gavin Cameron 