Nice poem, Steph. I find it interesting that you chose to use Biblical references.

And now for my question: I wrote a poem last night, and I'm not sure about it at all. I don't know if it makes any sense, and I'm really not sure about how it should be layed out if it does. So far I have three main options that I can see.

1) keep it all in small letters, no caps or punctuation at all, and let people figure it out on thier own (the first way, the way I saw it while I was writing the first draft).

acidaura
cutstoic
andichar
unumbero
sarcasms
tighttit
inmeandi
coldstic

2) Normal poetry, with capitals the beginning of every line and punctuation in, including spaces:

Acid aura
Cutstoic
And I char,
U number, O,
Sarcasm's
Tight tit
In me and I
Coldstic.

3)To bring out the 'hidden' meaning, with capitals:

AcidaurA
CutstoiC
AndIchaR
UnumberO
Sarcasm'S
Tight tiT
InmeandI
ColdstiC

Which one do you think works best? Do any of them work? Would a mixture of types be better?

Could you put it in three columns across? Or would that be too obvious?

Like this, you mean?

A cidaur A
C utstoi C
A ndIcha R
U number O
S arcasm' S
T ight ti T
I nmeand I
C oldsti C

No, sorry I wasn't clear. I was thinking all three variations in three separate columns, so the reader could revel in the cleverness of it. :-)

acidaura____Acid aura______AcidaurA
cutstoic____Cutstoic_______CutstoiC
andichar____And I char,____AndIchaR
unumbero___U number, O,___UnumberO
sarcasms___Sarcasm's______Sarcasm'S
tighttit_____Tight tit_______Tight tiT
inmeandi____In me and I____InmeandI
coldstic_____Coldstic.______ColdstiC

Thusly, more or less, allowing that some people can actually use HTML?

Three+ edits for formatting.

Hmmm... I'm not sure that works any better now that I see it. Sorry, this is pretty far from my usual areas of knowledge. (Ask me about hyena sexuality or how to make cider! I rock at stuff like that!)

I come from a strange world where poetry is as much meant to be heard as read. I'm always impressed as hell by clever multi-level things, but my brain is saying "Cool sounds."

I come from a strange world where poetry is as much meant to be heard as read.

I see that- it's probably why I'm struggling so much with this.

Glad for your opinion, Theodosia. Tell me about hyena sexuality some time!

I think my problem was that for days I was trying to read it as "acaustic acrostic", like some version of autistic or acoustic-- until tonight just after skating I went oh! A caustic acrostic.

But I could just be Stupid Reader.

Me stupid reader too.

I even looked up "acaustic" to see if it meant "not caustic".