Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!convex!killer!ames!mailrus!eecae!cps3xx!usenet
From: usenet@cps3xx.UUCP (Usenet file owner)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: TeX poetry macros
Summary: Does anyone have macros for setting poetry using TeX?
Keywords: TeX, poetry, macros
Message-ID: <777@cps3xx.UUCP>
Date: 6 Oct 88 00:48:02 GMT
Reply-To: smithda@frith.egr.msu.edu (Daniel Smith)
Organization: Engineering, Michigan State University, E. Lansing
Lines: 45
References:

Does anyone have a good set of macros for TeX poems?  What I am looking
for is a way to center the text of the poem on a page like this:
           A Title that is longer (or shorter) than the text
                             Line one,
                             This is line two,
                             And line three.

                             Line four
                             Here is line five,
                             End with line six.

I got something like to following TeX code to do the job, but its not very
pretty.  It also is rather difficult to use macros, becasue of the way /par
is redefined.
\hfil\hbox{
\vbox{\begingroup \let\par=\cr \obeylines %   
\halign{#\hfil
Line one,
This is line two,
And line three.
\noalign{\medskip}% space between verses
Line four, 
Here is line five,
End with line six.
}\endgroup
}}\hfil\par

It would be nice if the input file could look something like the following:
\beginpoetry   % turn on poetry mode
Line one,
This is line two,
% or perhaps \quad This is line two,
And line three.
\endofverse % the end of a verse, stanza, etc.
Line four,
Here is line five,
End with line six.
% \endofverse   if necessary, otherwise just
\endpoetry

Thanks in advance for any and all help.
==============================================================================
J. Daniel Smith                                    smithda@cpsvax.cps.msu.edu
Michigan State University                       
==============================================================================