Arts >> Books >> Poetry

How to Indicate Line Breaks When Printing a Poem

If you are getting poetry ready to print, you need to be able to indicate where the line breaks are. There are three standard methods used to indicate line breaks when quoting poetry in other work; you can use these same methods to indicate line breaks when preparing it for print.

Instructions

    • 1

      For poems that are five lines or fewer, separate each line with a slash mark. There should be a space before or after the slash mark.

      For example:

      First line / Second Line / Third Line

    • 2

      For longer poems, indicate line breaks by using indentations. Each new line should be placed on a separate line and indented 1 inch.

      For example:

      First line goes on and on and on
      Second line starts here and then
      The third line begins. But
      Don't forget to indent the fourth line, too.

    • 3

      Keep all punctuation and capitalization the same as it was in the original poem. Do not capitalize the first word of each line unless the author did so when submitting the poem.

+:
+:

Poetry

Related Categories