Poetry And eBooks: Will Poems Ever Work In eBook Formatting?

Hillel Italie addresses the question:

NEW YORK — Billy Collins, one of the country's most popular poets, had never seen his work in e-book form until he recently downloaded his latest collection on his Kindle.

He was unpleasantly surprised.

"I found that even in a very small font that if the original line is beyond a certain length, they will take the extra word and have it flush left on the screen, so that instead of a three-line stanza you actually have a four-line stanza. And that screws everything up," says Collins, a former U.S. poet laureate whose Ballistics came out in February. ...

Also check Travis Nichols on the topic of The eBook Ugly Stick.