Hello Dear Ones!

Over the years there has been controversy regarding the appropriate use of punctuation in poetry. From when to insert a simple comma, to the applicable introduction of a hyphen – and all the way to the final stop, or period.

Discussion ranges from using or ignoring an apostrophe, such as it’s and its, to the more demanding option of a colon or a semi-colon. Depending on the style of poetry used, punctuation can vary. Many poets use the breath as the only natural comma and hence end a line and create movement down to the line beneath it to effect that breath.

Gertrude Stein, who called the comma ‘servile’, expressed an interesting dispassion for semi-colons.  She wrote (notice her lack of commas in this writing) back in 1935 in her book “Poetry and Grammar”:

“They (semi-colons) are more powerful more imposing more pretentious than a comma but they are all the same. They really have within them deeply within them fundamentally within them the comma nature.” Continue Reading →