A Multi-level Visualization Scheme for Poetry

This article introduces a multi-level visualization scheme for poetry. In each level, different elements are represented and their attributes are coded in different ways. The first level displays the phonemes in a verse, tracing them back to the written word. The second level shows the poem itself in a metric grid where the verse syllables are placed. The third level shows a set of poems whose verses and syllables can be visually compared. Finally, the fourth level is capable of showing hundreds or thousands of verses at once, turning each verse into a tile whose color indicates a meaningful property. We argue that each level has its strengths and its weaknesses and we evaluate them with our collaborators from the poetry community.