Shalom Poetbrothers and Poetsisters

I am a Middle School Language Arts teacher and do teach punctuation and 
grammar intensely.  I tell my students that they can break the rules once 
they know them.  I know these rules inside out, and, as I wrote more poetry, 
decided to use visual punctuation; I felt traditional punctuation often got 
in my way.  I do use an apostrophe for possessive; I haven't figured out how 
to indicate it otherwise.

When I was in graduate school at UCLA, a professor informed us that only 
highly intelligent people know how to use a semicolon - now is that 
brainwashing or what!

kol tuv, Ryfkah


In a message dated 7/8/02 4:45:17 AM, [log in to unmask] writes:

<< ... Yeh, Frank, I guess punctuation isn’t taught as it used to be. But I
know I was either off school ill when the uses of colons, semicolons etc
were taught, or they were taught in a way that I can’t remember! I guess,
though, like words themselves, the guidelines of what and when to use the
little markers is slowly changing. I guess, like you, I want what I use in a
poem to work (and not cause puzzled comment, or worse, confusion). I can
remember the first time I saw one-word sentences in poems! At first I was
shocked... then I loved the audacity of it, the verve. It worked.
I guess I learn how the commas, dashes, semicolons etc are used in
contemporary poems by reading contemporary poems – and looking at how the
stuff’s presented on the page. Only a madman or a worried poet may spend
half an afternoon in a bookshop or library reading through a recently
published book to see if there’s any semicolons! (And, if they’re there,
working out why – and if there’s none discovering somewhere where one could
have been used and pondering the possibilities as to why it wasn’t!).
I used to use a fair few semicolons, then got pulled up about it, so I
stopped. And I can’t recall ever being told I should be using one in some
poem I’ve written since (even though there’s points in the poem where I
could have used one). (I’ve not got the best of memory, tho.) And who pulled
me up about it when I was using them? Magazine editors, people with a fair
few books in print, people I could trust.
But there’s still the rebel in me that’s determined to use some little
marker that’s almost been retired. If I do something like that, tho, I then
find I need to question my motives... (And sometimes, taking a deep breath,
go for it!) I still, for instance, use the occasional colon... And I’ve
sometimes tried what Ryfkah uses, white space/long gaps – but I didn’t keep
using it, it didn’t seem to fit my style.
I guess poets have to balance like a high wire artist somewhere between
what’s written and what’s spoken; like Christina mentioned both music and
fine art in her post - and grasshopper mentions music, too - we’ve an art
that’s got connectives to what’s both visual and verbal, we’re creating
things for both sight and sound.
Bob
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