StanzaHelp Center

The Text Composer

Access the text composer at /compose. Here is everything you can configure:

Title

Required. Up to 500 characters. This is how your poem appears in feeds, search results, and lists.

Content

Write your poem in Standard or Advanced mode. There is no minimum or maximum length.

Poetic Form

Optionally select a form from the dropdown: Sonnet, Haiku, Free Verse, Villanelle, Ode, Limerick, Ghazal, Ballad, and more. This helps readers understand the structure and helps with search discovery.

Style

Optionally select a style: Contemporary, Classical, Romantic, Confessional, Experimental, and others. Styles help categorize your work.

Tags

Add free-form tags (max 50 characters each) to describe your poem. Tags like "love", "nature", "grief", or "political" help readers find your work through search.

Presentation

Customize how your poem is displayed with optional background color, background image, and ambient background music. See the Presentation Settings article for details.

Privacy & Permissions

Choose a privacy level (Public through Private) and toggle whether readers can write letters (Correspondence), leave margin notes, and react to your piece.

After publishing, your poem has a short settling period (currently 30 minutes) for last touches — then the title and text settle and lock, and margin notes and critiques open. Settings, warnings, and appearance stay editable.