The use of punctuation in poetry continues to be a very personal choice for poets. What I am seeing in most literary journals is that editors want to see not only consistency, but an intentional use — or intentional omission — of punctuation.
Free verse allows for free voice and free style.
I thought I’d share ja few excerpts of published poems and showcase how they used punctuation effectively.
The following excerpts are for the intention of study, review and educational purposes only.
Jean Meets Alice (excerpt)
By Barry Butson
Published in the Antigonish Review, Winter 2015
My brother-in-law Wayne, (who is not Jean’s husband)
is present and says, Who’s Alice Munroe?
I say, Jean just shook the hand
that writes the world’s best short stories
Wayne’s wife, Karen, says
What does she write, historical novels?
Or hysterical ones? jokes Wayne
I say fiercely, No, she ... she writes
about real people
Okay, so let’s look closely at this. The only end punctuation is a question mark. No periods. The very last line (not shown here) also has no punctuation.
The theme of this poem is confusion. The poet is confused by the confusion. (Ha!) So, she makes good use of the question mark. She wants that question mark to stand out, to be a focal point, so much so that she uses a lower case j after one question mark to make it even more glaring.
She uses an ellipsis as a stutter. It is the only ellipsis in the entire poem. Had there been more than one, that stammer, that she/she would have lost its impact.
___________
Blind in the Summoner’s Arms
By Patrick Friesen
Published in the Malahat Review, Spring 2011
He stumbled down the stairs
into the garden of eyes
leaving the stone wall’s shade
he slid through a fence and came upon the cedar
a dream of hanging ladders of fire
and fearing the wordless night ahead
The pace here is frantic, nightmarish. The poet uses no punctuation in this verse. Punctuation slows pace. A comma within a line is a quick pause. A comma at the end of a line is a slower pause. A comma between stanzas is a long pause. A period works the same way, but because a period is a full stop, it creates a longer pause than a comma. Removing all punctuation really can work well, especially when the PACING of your poem is frantic, stressed, angry.
______________________
Sublet in the City (excerpt)
By Patricia Young
Published in the Fiddlehead, Summer 2014
thousands of half-naked apartment-
dwellers swarmed the beach,
gazing up at the sky. All summer
the forests of Siberia burned
spewing particulate matter across the ocean,
and the sunsets ... the sunsets
were stunning. Mornings I smiled
at the Korean woman who weighed
my daily measure of cherries
but she never smiled back.
Men of all ages pushed grocery
carts through the back alley,
This poet has wisely chosen to keep full stops within lines. She is controlling the pacing by leaving punctuation off the end of stanzas and her enjambment runs from stanza to stanza, causing the reader to RUSH towards the next stanza. An effective use of a period/pause is to allow the reader to pause when the subjects are actually pausing, too. The people on the beach are looking up at the sky, relaxing. There is a period after sky. We are, in effect, allowed to ponder that sky, too. Then, the pacing picks up, a bit. Again, this poet uses an ellipsis, not only to show a stretch of time, but a bridge (a physical bridge) between repetition. It is effective. This poet also only used one ellipsis. A second would have ruined this effect.
___________________
Some free verse poets also like to play with the mental image of punctuation, use it as a kind of intellectual echo of what is being written.
Here. One of my poems. Again, just an excerpt.
Eulogy for the Eldon Gallery
By Cyndi MacMillan
Dark, now, halls that sheltered
dreamscapes, art undisciplined, squeezed
into corners, elbowing for attention.
I ache
for one dove
that clung to an azure sky,
the coo of my name,
but I'd been unable to take him home
to my cube cage. He deserved
a rectory or a view that would provide
sanctuary. His wings had beat against
pulse points; one feather
tickled a memory
of a robin that aimed
for a cloudless sky but
collided with a picture window —
its point of contact left a scarlet smear.
Grandmother carefully wrapped
the corpse in yesterday’s news.
I intentionally used the emdash where I did. It is not simply used for grammatical reasons, I am also mentally projecting the moment of impact, the blood smear, by using an emdash. Right. There.
It can be very effective to use punctuation this way.
Here, I’ll show you another where an emdash was used with this kind of “subliminal?” intent.
A note on the unnamed subjects respiratory illness (except)
by Natalie Morill
And among the things she counts
an evening coughing blood
under a hot shower —
and truly:
there was a peculiar relief,
This is two stanzas. The poem is just three stanzas long and does not contain a period. No full stop. Because this illness never fully stops.
Now, check out the uber cool emdash.... after hot shower... shower ... a spray of water... a spray... like that dash, yes?
Some poets actually use punctuation AS poetry
Check out this incredible poem:
http://www.contemporaryverse2.ca/en/poetry/excerpt/elegy-for-my-fathers-labour
The trick is to use all punctuation with both an understanding of its grammatical relevance AND its conceptual signifance. Learning both usages will enhance your poetry and put YOU in the diver's seat.
Cheers!
Cyndi