Htydjtk

A mesostic is poem/text similar to an acrostic except the "spine word" runs down the middle. Wiki's article explains it ok.

The format was pioneered by the composer John Cage and as the years went on he added more rules and began to use it to "write through" large texts (like Walden) generating hundreds or more mesostic poems. Eventually he got some people to mostly automate the process via software.

I've created my own mesostic generator. Here is an example that it produced using Poe's The Raven with the spine word "Lenore":

       nearLy napping,  

        camE a  

      tappiNg,  

        as Of  

    gently Rapping,  

at my chambEr door.  

This can be achieved, roughly, with the following code:

documentclass[11pt]{memoir}

usepackage{fancyvrb}

usepackage{DejaVuSansMono}

begin{document}

begin{Verbatim}[xleftmargin=-35mm,commandchars=\{}]

                                      neartextbf{L}y napping, 

                                       camtextbf{E} a 

                                     tappitextbf{N}g, 

                                       as textbf{O}f 

                                   gently textbf{R}apping, 

                               at my chambtextbf{E}r door. 

end{Verbatim}

end{document}

My mesostic generator is written in Lua and automatically adds enough spaces on the left to get the spine to line up down the center (plus I add the bold face stuff).

This works wonderfully for monospaced fonts. When I look through Cage's books I see he uses proportional fonts and yet still retains the formatting with the spine running perfectly down the center. I'm guessing that this was done manually by the typesetter.

So I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas about how to automatically format mesostics using proportional fonts within TeX/LaTeX?

Couple of notes:

1. A solution in LuaLaTeX would be fine.




2. In Cage's and my mesostics, all the letters are converted to lowercase with only the spine letters in caps. This is something that might be used to help format things?




3. Cage's rules limit the total number of characters in a line to 90 or so (45 character limit on either side of the spine letter). I follow this in my software. In fact I change the font size automatically when the lines get long.

Disclaimer. The code below doesn't imply in any way whatsoever that I endorse or otherwise hold in esteem any aspect of John Cage's work.

The following approach splits the input at \, then builds lines one by one, setting an hbox where the width of the center letter is measured; the box will then consist of

1. a box as wide as half the linewidth minus half the center letter's width, flush right;


2. the center letter;


3. a box like in step 1, but flush left.

documentclass{article}

usepackage{environ,xparse}



usepackage{kantlipsum} % for context



ExplSyntaxOn

NewEnviron{mesostic}

 {

  paraddvspace{topsep}

  mesostic_build:V BODY

  addvspace{topsep}

 }



seq_new:N l__mesostic_body_seq

box_new:N l__mesostic_center_box



cs_new_protected:Nn mesostic_build:n

 {

  seq_set_split:Nnn l__mesostic_body_seq { \ } { #1 }

  seq_map_inline:Nn l__mesostic_body_seq

   {

    __mesostic_line:w ##1 q_stop

   }

 }

cs_generate_variant:Nn mesostic_build:n { V }



cs_new_protected:Npn __mesostic_line:w #1 | #2 | #3 q_stop

 {

  hbox_set:Nn l__mesostic_center_box { textbf{#2} }

  hbox_to_wd:nn { linewidth }

   {

    hbox_to_wd:nn { (linewidth-box_wd:N l__mesostic_center_box)/2 }

     {

      hss #1

     }

    textbf{#2}

    hbox_to_wd:nn { (linewidth-box_wd:N l__mesostic_center_box)/2 }

     {

      #3 hss

     }

   }

 }

ExplSyntaxOff



begin{document}



kant[1]



begin{mesostic}

         near|L|y napping, \

          cam|E| a         \

        tappi|N|g,         \

          as |O|f          \

      gently |R|apping,    \

  at my chamb|E|r door.

end{mesostic}



kant[2]



end{document}

Changing the font might be implemented by making a tentative typesetting and measuring each part in order to see whether it satisfies the constraints of being contained in the line width; in case of failure, stop, change the font size and repeat.

A variant that allows for an optional argument where to state a font or a font size (or both); also a check for a trailing \ is added. The main code has been simplified (thanks to jfbu for the idea).

documentclass{article}

usepackage{environ,xparse}



usepackage{kantlipsum} % for context



ExplSyntaxOn

NewEnviron{mesostic}[1]

 {

  #1

  paraddvspace{topsep}

  mesostic_build:V BODY

  addvspace{topsep}

 }



seq_new:N l__mesostic_body_seq

cs_generate_variant:Nn tl_if_empty:nT { x }



cs_new_protected:Nn mesostic_build:n

 {

  seq_set_split:Nnn l__mesostic_body_seq { \ } { #1 }

  % check for a trailing \

  tl_if_empty:xT { seq_item:Nn l__mesostic_body_seq { -1 } }

   {

    seq_pop_right:NN l__mesostic_body_seq l_tmpa_tl

   }

  seq_map_inline:Nn l__mesostic_body_seq

   {

    __mesostic_line:w ##1 q_stop

   }

 }

cs_generate_variant:Nn mesostic_build:n { V }



cs_new_protected:Npn __mesostic_line:w #1 | #2 | #3 q_stop

 {

  hbox_to_wd:nn { linewidth }

   {

    hss

    hbox_to_wd:nn { 0pt } { hss tl_lower_case:n { #1 } }

    textbf{tl_upper_case:n { #2 }}

    hbox_to_wd:nn { 0pt } { tl_lower_case:n { #3 } hss }

    hss

   }

 }

ExplSyntaxOff



begin{document}



kant[1]



begin{mesostic}

         near|L|y napping, \

          cam|E| a         \

        tappi|N|g,         \

          as |O|f          \

      gently |R|apping,    \

  at my chamb|E|r door.

end{mesostic}



kant[2]



begin{mesostic}[sffamilyfootnotesize]

         NEAR|l|Y NAPPING \

          CAM|e| A        \

        TAPPI|n|G         \

          AS |o|F         \

      GENTLY |r|APPING    \

  AT MY CHAMB|e|R DOOR    \

end{mesostic}



kant[3]



end{document}

documentclass{article}



makeatletter

  defmesostic@end{end{mesostic}}

begingroupcatcode`^^Mactive

  gdefmesostic@aux#1|#2|#3mesostic@aux%

     {noindenthfill%

      llap{MakeLowercase{#1}}%

      textbf{MakeUppercase{#2}}%

      rlap{MakeLowercase{#3}}%

      hfillhbox{}par%

      expandafter^^M}%

endgroup

newenvironment{mesostic}{parskip0ptrelax

   obeylines

   begingrouplccode`~`^^M 

   lowercase{endgroupdef~##1~}{%

     defmesostic@tmp{##1}%

     ifxmesostic@tmpmesostic@end

       expandaftermesostic@end

     else

       mesostic@aux##1mesostic@aux

     fi}%

  }{}

makeatother



begin{document}



blah blah blah



noindent Xdotfill X



begin{mesostic}

  near|L|y napping,

  cam|E| a

  tappi|N|g,

  as |O|f

  gently |R|apping,

  at my chamb|E|r door.

end{mesostic}



noindent Xdotfill X



blah blah blah



noindent Xdotfill X



begin{mesostic}

  NEAR|l|Y NAPPING,

  CAM|e| A

  TAPPI|n|G,

  AS |o|F

  GENTLY |r|APPING,

  AT MY CHAMB|e|R DOOR.

end{mesostic}





noindent Xdotfill X



blah blah blah



end{document}

And using Xdotfill Xdotfill X for the extra lines for context:

documentclass{article}



makeatletter

{obeylineseveryeof{noexpand}%

gdefzzz#1{%

catcode`#1activescantokens{defzzzz{gdef#1}}%

zzzz##1^^M{makebox[.5textwidth][l]{textbf{string#1##1}}par}%

}}

defzz{flushrightobeylines%

letorzzz@Alph{0fiiftrue}}%



defendzz{endflushright}

begin{document}



begin{zz}

       nearLy napping,  

        camE a  

      tappiNg,  

        as Of  

    gently Rapping,  

at my chambEr door.  

end{zz}

end{document}