Typesetting poems

Question

I have ~250 poems to typeset, consisting of ~40 verses each. 99% are in this form:

line 1
line 2
line 3
line 4

line 5
line 6
line 7
line 8

...

The "source" of each poem is a PDF file which I use to copy / paste into a plain text file.

Now the task is to format these poems while avoiding too much markup. I could do this:

\begin{verse}
line 1 \\
line 2 \\
line 3 \\
line 4 \\
\end{verse}

\begin{verse}
line 5 \\
line 6 \\
line 7 \\
line 8 \\
\end{verse}

But I much prefer not adding \begin{verse} and \end{verse} around each verse and I would like to avoid the double backslash at the end of each line. What can I do?

Some "rules"

• No page break is allowed inside a 4 line verse
• I want to avoid markup, but if it's not possible, its OK to add markup
• All exceptions are handeld manually
• No other special formatting is required (each of the four lines are flush left and ragged right, no automatic line breaking
• Some poems should be mulitcolumn, if feasible
• Each poem is in its own file, having a \title{...} and a \date{...} before it starts (I could put this somewhere else though).

Answer 1

\documentclass[twocolumn]{article}

\textheight.5\textheight

\begingroup
\makeatletter
\catcode13\active%
\gdef\verseinput#1{%
{%
\interlinepenalty\@M%
\def^^M{\@ifnextchar^^M\par{\ifhmode\break\fi}}%
\rightskip\fill%
\parindent\z@%
\parskip\baselineskip%
\raggedbottom%
\catcode13\active\input{#1}%
\par%
}}%
\endgroup%
\begin{document}

\verseinput{v1.txt}

\end{document}

---

line 1
line 2
line 3
line 4

line 5
line 6
line 7
line 8

line 9
line 10
line 11
line 12

line a9
line a10
line a11
line a12

line b9
line b10
line b11
line b12

line a9
line a10
line a11
line a12

line b9
line b10
line b11
line b12

line a9
line a10
line a11
line a12

line b9
line b10
line b11
line b12

line a9
line a10
line a11
line a12

line b9
line b10
line b11
line b12

line a9
line a10
line a11
line a12

line b9
line b10
line b11
line b12

Answer 2

Add the following to your preamble and you don't need to type any mark-up:

\documentclass{article}
\makeatletter
\newdimen\allttindent \allttindent=0pt % set this to change the indent

\def\docspecials{\do\ \do\$\do\&%
  \do\#\do\^\do\^^K\do\_\do\^^A\do\%\do\~}

\def\alltt{\trivlist \item[]\if@minipage\else\vskip\parskip\fi
\leftskip\@totalleftmargin  \advance\leftskip\allttindent \rightskip\z@
\parindent\z@\parfillskip\@flushglue\parskip\z@
\@tempswafalse \def\par{\if@tempswa\hbox{}\fi\@tempswatrue\@@par}
\obeylines \tt \catcode``=13 \@noligs
\let\do\@makeother \docspecials
 \frenchspacing\@vobeyspaces}

\let\endalltt=\endtrivlist
\AtBeginDocument{\alltt}
\AtEndDocument{\endalltt}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
There was an old woman of 92
Parlez-vous
There was an old woman of 92
Parlez-vous
There was an old woman of 92
Did a fart and away it flew
Inky pinky parlez-vous

The fart went rolling down the street
Knocked a copper off his feet

The copper got out his rusty pistol
Blew the fart right on to Bristol

The people of Bristol were having a dance
The fart went rolling on to France

The people of France were not at home
The fart went rolling on to Rome
\end{document}

It does not do the multicolumn but it maybe possible to trigger a multicolumn based on a word of the poem. Let me know the word and maybe egreg can come up with a macro for that! The preamble is borrowed from alltt2.