Visual Voices by Irving Weiss

Poem of the Uniqueness of the Right Margin

William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585-1649), "Madrigal."

Traditionally, the only secure distinction between verse and prose on the page lay in the irregularily of the right margin. The imcomparability of any poem on the page also may lie in the uniqueness of its right margin. Here uniqueness is graphically figured by three trials.