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At some point early on, I stopped using punctuation of any kind. Except maybe a capital letter at the beginning of the poem. I think the reason was that I wanted the primary shaping and rhythmic device of a line on a page to be in its lineation. Then sometimes I wanted to use punctuation, so I did. My rule is simple, I use as little as is possible and as much as is necessary. And sometimes now I do capitalise lines. I do this to emphasise the turn of the line, its breath, and generally (but not always) in more formal lyric poems. Maybe it comes from my great admiration of how Milton uses endstop and run ons in Paradise Lost. I can't remember. But he's the master of beginning a line. xA -- Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com