---
title: "Shaped text"
description: "Western notation had been trying to create this compression for a long time. It fulfills a tradition..."
author: "FarizaTursynova"
published: "2012-05-06T05:09:12+00:00"
modified: "2012-05-06T05:09:12+00:00"
locale: "ru"
canonical_url: "https://yvision.kz/post/shaped-text-256765"
markdown_url: "https://yvision.kz/post/shaped-text-256765/markdown"
site_name: "Yvision.kz"
---

# Shaped text

> Western notation had been trying to create this compression for a long time. It fulfills a tradition...

Western notation had been trying to create this compression for a long time. It fulfills a traditional genre called “shape poetry.” Shape poems, or pattern poems, are poems whose shape refers to their subject: a poem about an altar in the shape of an altar, a poem about an ax in the shape of one, a poem about an umbrella which outlines a raised umbrella. It is an old genre.The following poem is shaped as an altar:

The Altar

A broken ALTAR, Lord thy servant rears, Made of a heart, and cemented with teares: Whose parts are as thy hand did frame; No workmans tool hath touch'd the same A HEART alone Is such a stone, As nothing but Thy pow'r doth cut. Wherefore each part Of my hard heart Meets in this frame, To praise thy Name: That if I chance to hold my peace, These stones to praise thee may not cease. O let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine, And sanctifie this ALTAR to be thine.

---

Source: [https://yvision.kz/post/shaped-text-256765](https://yvision.kz/post/shaped-text-256765)