robert said:

Most verse can be distinguished from prose by the preponderance of capitalization at the beginnings of lines, and the preponderance of punctuation at the ends of lines

right. and when it happens to utilize end-line rhymes, those are pretty easy for a machine to spot as well... :+) but did i miss something? have end-users started clamoring for machines to track down poetry now? even though i'm a performance poet, not a print poet, a development like that would be encouraging to me! alas, i fear there is no such clamoring, i am sad to say...

which heuristics work until you meet e e cummings.

no heuristics work for cummings. :+) the definition of imaginativeness is that it defies heuristics.

But then, it has always struck me that the goal of zml is to meet 90% of your needs, 90% of the time.

it's improving all the time, so the goal is now 93% of your needs, 97.2% of the time... ;+) -bowerbird p.s. the "current" z.m.l. spec is over a year old now. i don't think it's changed much, if at all, in that time, but it's not "new" to anyone who has been listening... p.p.s. if you find any people who _need_ poetry, please do be sure and let me know, right away!