Layout is the first to go
Lines of poetry are sacred to both the author and the reader. To alter the specific construction in line length is to alter the look and rhythm of the poem. However, as ebooks and eReading devices have become more prevalent, readers have come to expect certain functionality, including the ability to resize the type in order to make it more legible… This may cause unintended line breaks to occur within the poems. — Billy Collins in a note to the reader in his ebook: The Rain in Portugal
Layout is the first to go
That extra space
between the lines
Calibrated
For the meaningful pause
Or maybe just for how
it looks on the page
Gone.
That little tab
Pushing in the words
Of the fourth line
Just the right amount
Gone as well.
This is the price we pay
For going the digital way
Ceding the power of font
And design
To the screen’s mighty sway.
And you pay too
Dear reader
Limited as you are
In what you know
And what the interface
Lets you see.
Is there a metaphor here
One wonders
To be exploited
The mind probes
(As a tongue does
A chipped tooth
Or a finger testing
a scab)
Seeking, a bigger story
maybe, about technology.
And the meanings we make.
With choices that aren’t choices
Really.
Weighing the gain, potential
Against loss, a certainty.
But maybe it is
Just how things are
And need to be
If we are, today,
To read
poetry.
*****
Bonus Content
FYI: A flight of fancy if poems had post-credit bonus scenes (as in the movies).
This poem comes
(Yes!)
With bonus content
Which you can see
If you are patient
Not wishing
To leave early.
Hold on to your,
Now warm, drink
And stale popcorn
Tuck in your knees
To let people leave
Ones clearly not
As committed
As you and me.
The credits roll
And you marvel
At all the people
It took
– More than a village
Apparently –
To make this poem
More than its intent.
And then finally
There it is…
The bonus content.
Though truth be told
The bonus stuff,
was oversold.
The offerings
They were meager
Even for us,
Ones who were eager
All it did
Was make us wait
For the next poem,
And ponder its fate.