It seems you need to indent the text by the same amount as the letter-spacing. The first letter does not have the spacing applied to the left side
div {
width: 400px;
height: 400px;
background-color: #3b0d3b;
text-align: center;
margin: auto;
}
p {
color: #fff;
background: black;
text-align: center;
font-size: 1.2em;
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
}
.spacing {
letter-spacing: .4em;
}
.spacing-large {
letter-spacing: 0.9em;
text-align: center;
text-indent: 0.9em;
}
<div>
<p>- Foo Bar Zan -</p>
<p class="spacing">- Foo Bar Zan -</p>
<p class="spacing-large">- Foo Bar Zan -</p>
</div>
The logical explanation I came up with is – since it is the first letter, spacing on the left side will not apply.