require

Configurable technical poetry analysis:

• as you type or of existing material, in a clear and unobtrusive manner;
• offering analysis and comparative analysis of form and form elements, identifying similarities anywhere in the poem, highly frequent and / or unusual patterns of elements, and, if appropriate, matching text against form definition;
• offer as stand alone product; consider as plug–in to the horrible–to–use duopoly of Office and Open Office, if so support Word Perfect so users can chose a product that does what it’s told (and I want to stay sane);
• saving standard formats plus import / export to other PoPros, ASCII, OpenDoc, HTML, XML, perhaps some common music software lyric formats, etc.;
• cliché spotter (which will rubbish much mainstream British poetry);
• provide poetry templates;
• add and / or play recordings of recitals of work;
• Construct for English, but support alternative locales throughout.

Editable form specifications and analysis:

• supporting all common poem forms and form elements including metre, rhythm, repetition, stanzas, rhyme, pararhyme, alliteration, and syllabics;
• consider performance factors including liaison (for problematic syllable sequences), punctuation, and explore directions for performers;
• generate form templates;
• support import / export.

Editable pronunciation dictionary:

• including but not limited to phonetic / syllable–count / rhythm / emphasis;
• search, including similarity search by form element and word meaning (by spelling and phonetically);
• alternative pronunciations;
• international, regional and historical accents;
• addition and modification of phonemes;
• offer import / export.

Relative semantics:

• include / reuse existing thesaurus data;
• offer simple editing of content;
• permit import / export, particularly of Princeton data.

Editable cliché dictionary:

• add, edit, remove clichés;
• provide import / export.

Secure online:

• update of product and new form, dictionaries, thesauruses (?), locales and templates;
• distribution of digitally signed work, identified by poet / title / first line / subject / form / poet’s age / year / derivation, edited publications, help text, for version tracked community / collective / collaborative / copyleft work;
• local server able to control local redistribution & configure online rights (for schools).

Web site:

• wiki based, mainly to shunt the crap and cause debate;
• poetry indexing by poet / title / first line / subject / form / poet’s age / year / derivation;
• encourage collaborative construction, & recordings;
• areas: edited, schools, “general” (end up full of drivel) and by invitation.

Given the average poet is computer illiterate, and the average user is poetry illiterate:

• include an introduction explaining the product’s basic features and how to use it;
• offer detailed and comprehensive help, explaining the purpose of particular components, and overviews showing how items hang together;
• include detailed help, with examples, on poetry and technical poetry stuff, editable by the community (wiki).

Technical Requirements:

• operating system independent, specifically, must run on Windows, OS X and Linux;
• take advantage of multi–core CPU architectures.