Part Eight: Pestered
by Punctuation
Yes. You should use punctuation. A common mistake of beginning poets is
to completely omit punctuation marks from their work and rely on spacing
and line breaks as a substitute. Of course, the punctuation appropriate
to a poem may differ in small ways from the punctuation of prose, but there
still should be some to act as a guide for the reader.
When we look at a poem on the page, we see the physical layout of the lines
and the spaces. If we compare the poem to a music score, the words are
the notes that indicate sounds to be made. In poetry, spacing and punctuation
act as rests and breath marks. These little dots and squiggles help the reader
to read aloud and aid in comprehension of the poem. A musical score
has rests of different lengths and writing has different types of punctuation
to indicate stops of varying degrees.
The most basic of the punctuation marks is the full stop or period. It
marks the end of a thought. The longest or strongest rest in a
poem would be an “end stop” at a stanza break. Any end mark that
coincides with the
end of a line at the stanza’s end will have a very strong
emphasis.
A question mark or exclamation mark will have more visual impact and
tend
to make a reader pause a bit longer than for a period. If the
mark
is in a different position, as in the middle of a line of poetry, it
will
have less emphasis. Commas work as breath marks. When you
read
a poem aloud, it is helpful to have an idea of where to take that quick
breath
before moving on. However, we often use commas to make sense of
through
separating information that would be confusing otherwise.
Line-breaks
work in a similar way to commas, so you may find that poets use fewer
commas
than they would if the individual lines were rewritten as
prose.
There are several different ways to more set apart information besides the
simple comma. In complex sentences, it may at times be necessary to
use other types of punctuation. The Mentor Guide to Punctuation
(Paxson, 1986) suggests a hierarchy of the marks for separation from weakest
to strongest: comma, dash, parentheses, semicolon, followed by the period,
question mark and exclamation marks which carry equal weight. Dashes or parentheses
are used to indicate more of an interruption than commas. These also
shape the way a reader paces their reading of the poem, as well as, add a
visual element to the poem on the page. When you write, think
about to what degree the information needs to be separated either for meaning
or for effect. A comma is a brief interruption, a dash adds a
larger visual separation while still connecting the line, while the parentheses
is helpful for an aside or explanation. The semicolon indicates almost, but
not quite, a full stop. Placement of any of these marks at the
end of the line will also give them more emphasis.
A colon tends to function in writing similar to the way an equal sign does
in a mathematic equation. The type of the list or series is one half
of the equation and the individual parts are the other. For example,
“He bought groceries: bananas, rice, cabbage, and onions.” Groceries
designates the type of list or series and found on the other side of the
colon are the individual parts. The structure acts in a similar way to the
equation “10 = 2 + 3 + 4 + 1”.
An overused punctuation device in poetry is the ellipsis. Used properly
they indicate missing or omitted words in quoted material. Many beginning
writers tend to use them when the speaker of the poem wants to say something,
but words fail him. Ellipsis may be employed for halting speech, but
should be used sparingly.
There seems to be a recent tendency for poets to use italics for speech
in the body of a poem. Typically, italics signify internal dialog with quotation
marks indicating words spoken aloud. Italics can also be used to emphasize
a particular word or phrase, to designate words of a song, or to indicate
sounds (such as cheep-cheep) other than human language. Dorianne
Laux uses these conventions to add subtle shading to her poem “Aphasia”.
The poem, which discusses the impact of a stroke on a woman’s ability to use
language, presents the single word the woman can say —Venezuela— in italics
each time. In the poem, the word lacks the meaning we would typically assign
it. She uses italics to add emphasis to the word and to also equate
it to a role similar to the role of sounds (think tweet or woof)
that we hear but can only guess at their meaning, such as a bird’s song or
a dog’s barking.
Some of our famous poets utilized a favorite punctuation mark. We
would likely be able to recognize a poem by Emily Dickinson by her usage
of the dash and e. e. cummings playfully explored the boundaries between
graphic presentation, punctuation, and grammatical conventions in his work.
To aid communication between the poem and the reader, remember that punctuation
can influence both the pacing of the poem (by designating stops) and the clarity
of the information (through separation and added emphasis). Along with
the dictionary and thesaurus that any poetry writer should own, I would recommend
a resource on proper usage of punctuation. As you read and revise,
be aware of how the punctuation guides your interpretation of a line. Try
to be consistent in your own usage of punctuation marks. Pay attention to
how different marks change the emphasis of a poem and experiment to see which
have the desired effect on the poem at hand. You may just find that a little
punctuation mark will add the perfect, subtle, nuance to you poem. |
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