Poetry Bloggers: Are Your Poems Readable?

Poetry bloggers have a lot more to consider than just the content and craft of their poems. As the owner and operator of a blog, you are in charge of deciding things like layout, color schemes, font size and style, and even the overall design features of your blog. A lot of poetry blogs aren't pleasant to read, not because the content is bad, but because the blogger hasn't given much thought to whether their design is conducive to reading poetry.

For example, one somewhat popular design that I see on a lot of Wordpress.com poetry blogs has a black background, with grey text in a small 10-point font. I really hate reading sites that use that design, because it's such a strain on the eyes.

Here's how you can improve the readability of your poetry blog:

• Use a High Contrast Color: Pick a font color that sticks out from your background. Here, for example, I use a black font on white. You don't have to be quite so stark, of course -- you could do something like a dark blue on white, or dark brown on a cream background. Avoid red font colors -- they're hard on the eyes.
• Lots of Whitespace: Poetry reads best when it isn't cramped and cluttered. Consider adding a little whitespace around your poem to isolate it from the rest of the page. Your readers will be able to focus on your poem without getting distracted by the other parts of your site. Note that "whitespace" need not be white: it simply refers to empty space that doesn't contain text or images or site widgets.
• Large Font Size: Most websites use a relatively small font size -- 10 or 12 point. With poetry, you can generally get away with using a slightly larger font size than you'd use for prose, since you're dealing with a smaller amount of text. The larger font size will make your poem easier to read.
• Consider a Serifed Font: A lot of websites use sans serifed fonts like Arial or Verdana, because sans serif is easier to read on the screen -- for large blocks of text. However, since poetry is typically a sparse piece of content, a serifed font like Georgia can provide a professional look to your poetry, since it mimicks the typeface used in most printed poetry books.

Of course, if you're running your blog on a free service like Wordpress.com or Blogger.com, you might not have the ability to edit your design to implement these suggestions. If that's the case, I'd suggest looking for a premade design that uses some or all of these readability principles.