What about . . . .

Word clouds.

Are they a bit adolescent? (Something about them reminds me of 5th year english folders trying a little too hard) But they're sooo nice and satisfying if you pop a poem into them and see it emerge transformed.
The poem that I put in looks way better than it does in actual, on the page, print. I got the image from www.wordle.net, where it's copywrited to Jonathan Feinberg (who is apparently a really gifted word cloud designer).

Here's the original poem.


Dublin

It was June when I learnt you had passed away -
a long, long time after the burial.
After your bones had been weathered chalk white
and your skirts had been tucked in some drawer
and your faded silk shawls had been claimed by some girl
who danced on your grave and made light of your fame
and swore she would never end up
the same way.

You were regal. There really is no other word
to describe your grim grace, the stern measured gaze
that you cast on the people who walked
on your streets -
But you still had to die, I suppose.
Smog stained and tatty and everything else that you were.

Now when I walk on the pavements up there
I notice the cracks, the narrow paths
that cut between headstones and graves.
Sometimes I think I might shrink,
slip between them to join you in your ancient sleep,
you and the millions lined up in graveyards,
like dominoes, ranged toe to head.
Here the living take up far less space
than the dead.
I watch my step instead.