Every month, I attend a poetry circle where each member writes a piece to be discussed at the next meeting.
When I submit work, I generally place it on the same template, in Courier New font, leaving room at the top for my name, address and line count. This month, I decided to deviate from the format.
I used the confrontation between Craig Phillips and Nick Bateman in Series 1 of Big Brother as inspiration for the poem in question. As such, the piece needed to be laid out in a way that suggested a relentless pace.
The most obvious step was to write the text in a column with no more than four words per line. I then changed the typeface. Some experimentation found Bahnschrift SemiBold Condensed to be most suitable, as it’s narrow but still chunky enough to read comfortably. I don’t particularly like centred justification as it’s more difficult for the eye to follow it down. As a compromise, I adjusted the left-hand indent to around 85mm from the edge of the page, placing the text roughly down the centre line.
The two templates above are merely examples. There are countless variations available online, each with their own benefits and pitfalls. The most important factor is to decide which one is suitable for your purposes.
When sending work to a publisher, this will be dictated by the submission guidelines. Yes, these can be annoying to follow, but a consistent format ensures the editors know exactly where to look. So pick your template wisely.
Gavin Cameron 