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I would like to layout a professionally designed book containing poems. What template should I use?

2 Answers 2

7

See the LaTeX package verse for typesetting poems: http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/verse/

11

I would highly recommend the memoir document class for latex. It has it's own version of the verse environment, plus a lot more nice things. Check the section in the memoir manual, it's a thing of beauty all on it's own.

Anyway, the relevant bits I gleaned from Memoir are below. The re-defining of the macro \PoemTitle makes the otherwise centered poem title flush with the left edge of the poem body.

\documentclass[a5paper,10pt,twoside]{memoir}

\renewcommand{\PoemTitlefont}{%
\normalfont\scshape\flushleft% Remove centering from poem title
\hspace*{0.5\linewidth}\hspace*{-0.5\versewidth}}% Makes poem title flush left with body block.

\checkandfixthelayout

\begin{document}

\settowidth{\versewidth}{my looooongest poem line} 
\PlainPoemTitle % Removes the counter from \PoemTitle
\PoemTitle{My Poem Title}
\begin{verse}[\versewidth]

This is my poem,\\
isn't it nice?\\
This is my poem,\\
please read it twice\\
and one,\\
loooooooooooong poem line\\
right at the end!\\
\end{verse}

\end{document}

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