Does the user want to display all poetry as bold? In that case, it's best to include this in a custom style sheet: a text file named custom.sty, which is placed in the project folder. It's created and edited outside of Paratext and lists all non-standard formatting of markers.
Include the following lines for all poetry markers in use in the project:
\Marker q
\Bold
\Marker q1
\Bold
etc.
(Background: the formatting of markers is defined in a general stylesheet, in most cases usfm.sty, which is saved in \My Paratext 9 Projects. Styles can be further defined in custom stylesheets, which are saved in the project folder. Anything in a custom style sheet overrides the general stylesheet.)
But if the user wants to highlight only certain poetic sections, there is no other way than using a character formatting marker like \bd ... \bd*, and these have to be repeated in each line.
Paulus