Tags
Adrienne Rich, appearance, Form, Guillaume Apollinaire, John Donne, line breaks, PubTalk, punctuation
How do you like your poems to appear on the page? Do you like short, symmetrical lines, with plenty of white space all around? Or do you prefer the weight and solid depth of prose poetry? Perhaps you enjoy visual poems, like the famous Calligrammes created by French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, an interplay of form and content that are still being read and published in beautiful luxury editions today. Sadly, this latter form seems to have fallen out of favour in contemporary poetry, unless you are working with children.
If you opt for lines, you need not fear that you are choosing the conventional option. There is good reason to believe that poems were organised in lines before they were ever written down. But are lines based on what you see (the physical end of the line) or what you hear? Do you pause to take breath at the end of them, or does it whirl you on to a crescendo? We now see poems on the page much more frequently than we recite them aloud – although some of our poets do both (thank you for that, by the way, there is such marvelous and subtle difference between the look and the feel of a poem).
Do you like the symmetry of sonnets or the galloping of modern line breaks that seem to occur where you least expect them, and project you forward on to a most exhilarating, if undisciplined ride? Compare Adrienne Rich’s poem ‘Fox’, with its apparent ragged, undisciplined, wild use of different line lengths, with the discipline and evenness of Donne’s ‘The Good Morrow’.
Fox by Adrienne Rich (fragment)
I needed fox Badly I needed
a vixen for the long time none had come near me
I needed recognition from a
triangulated face burnt-yellow eyes
fronting the long body the fierce and sacrificial tail
I needed history of fox briars of legend it was said she had run through
I was in want of fox
And now good-morrow to our waking souls,Which watch not one another out of fear;For love, all love of other sights controls,And makes one little room an everywhere.Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.(Donne – fragment)
And what happens when we read poetry on an eReader, does it become more difficult to convey the poet’s exact intentions? Across all the different platforms and screens, interfaces and font sizes, poetic lines have become shape shifters. Is that causing us problems as readers, are we in danger of losing the ‘look’ and ‘sound’ of the poem as the poet intended it? Or does it give us even more freedom to interpret it the way we want?
Finally, how do you feel about punctuation or capital letters at the start of every line? Some of us use them, others avoid them altogether, while still others change the format depending on the type of poem they write. In the examples above, you have Rich’s complete lack of punctuation and many of you have cited e.e. cummings as an influence too. Do you use spaces or fun signs and what do they mean to you? I remember when I first joined the dVerse community, I was struck instantly by Claudia’s idiosyncratic punctuation – which fits in perfectly with her apparently random (and yet carefully constructed) thought associations and intimate chatter or asides. However, if I were to use them, it would look fake.
Hello Poets.. I’m here to start the discussions.. (a little late, just came for our writing group)…
I have to admit to left justified, single spaced… but if you have ever seen a C. W. Russel letter, then I wish I could write that way.
I also think that poems need to stand on their own – and if we explain them, then we’ve failed to communicate as poets, but I’m a bit quirky.
Ah.. poems should stay by themselves, but we need to help the reader with the rhythm.
yes, and sometimes we need the help too.
I will try to add my readings more often 🙂
if you want to see an unique piece of the American West, check out the Charles W Russell letters
I have to read those letters… high praise indeed.
I’m loving this subconversation of poetry standing on its own… or does it change according to the eye of its beholder? I don’t have a clear answer to that, and am not sure if I can let go of my poem enough for that … yet…
ambiguity stifles prose, but lets the reader own a poem.
CW Russell was a self taught cowboy artist – who often illustrated his letters. Now they are family treasures.
So I start out.. I love my poems adjusted with a left margin. I use punctuation as i would do in prose, so a line could begin with a capital letter or not depending on where it is in the sentence. My line breaks are always pauses, and should help giving the right rhythm.. I use most types punctuation except exclamation mark, though I have a special fondness for the m-dash.
With such requirement I think it works with blogging at wordpress… 🙂
yes, I almost always use the line breaks as pauses too.
That’s what feels the most natural to me too, Bjorn, but I admire a fellow poet who uses no caps and punctuation whatsoever and leaves some spaces in her lines. She says it allows her words to breathe and it gives the reader time to think.
Hi Marina,
Fun questions.
I wrote two poems to criticize poems which use these paper styles :
(1) “Centered Poems”
(2) “Tiny-line Poems”
And concerning commas, ellipsis, blank spaces, special characters and more — I feel many folks just use these to *try* to seem poetic, or to *try* and appear deep and thoughtful. Similar to using incomplete thoughts, vague lines and such — writers use them because poetry allows them, not because they communicate.
Sure, we can all rejoice in different styles and your examples above are fun. But many people just hide in style — forgetting that people are trying to read their stuff.
And finally, I did this graphic to show why everyone should ignore my opinions about poetry.
(PS- on such posts, I suggest turning on the ability of folks to check the option to follow comments by e-mail)
Tee-hee, that was fun to see! The tiny line poems are very annoying onscreen, aren’t they, because of the endless scrolling. And yes, I would agree with you that sometimes these tools become just affectation. Like people using words like ‘gossamer’ and ‘rosy-golden dawn’ and so on, because they sound poetic. But I’m nevertheless drawn to visual experimentation, possibly because I’m instinctively auditive rather than visual.
i let it flow and try not to analyze it.. and am often pleased by the results after the ‘Art’.. and sometimes am amazed by what comes without conscious planning or thought…
But that is poetry to me.. and art that I do believe should have as many ways.. as there are cells in a human body..:)
And there is nothing wrong with planned structure.. it is the innate human way to eliminate anxiety.. in a world that is truly art instead of science.. in big or smaller picture view..:)
We have rectangular and square buildings in the U.S. that are overall angular along with standard typed print language; and other countries have spiraling building structure and cursive looking standard typed print language.
All representative of course.. with cultural ways of living and reflective of the way the cultural minds works together…
And that is fascinating to me.. as with all things associated with dVerse minds/cultures of human being..:)
Sometimes letting it just flow is the right thing.. I always try to listen to how it sound, and let my words represent the sounds..
That’s an interesting comment – about the link between architecture and how we like to see the printed word. Of course, the Western world tends to prefer symmetry, while the Far East is far more interested in assymetry. What happens, also, when you write in different alphabets/writing systems? If you start from right to left, for instance? One of our poets was linking from Israel and her website is customised for right justify – it confused all of us no end when we were trying to leave comments, but it made for some interesting inadvertent line breaks…
Well.. the nice thing about poetry in the freest sense.. that it starts in as an art form.. before it becomes labeled with different styles.. is to allow one to freely express what lies and tells the truth.. beyond cultural restraints.. of what ever time is ‘occupied’ by other folks in idea formed culture…
Nice that Whitman.. Kerouac.. and other poets bring that back in the middle of last century.. along with the Beatles.. and so many others in music free verse freedom.. in the west.. as it is already living in the East then…
In other words.. poetry and art.. in general.. breaks cultural barriers and is a necessary pArt of successful culture… It’s why communism and other ways of enforced life just do not work.. as at core.. all humans are special snowflakes.. if allowed that freedom of expression.. in all ways it paints life.. as unlimited colors.. of rainbow lies and true…
That’s why I can never find fault with anyone’s poetry here.. as for me it is dissing their soul.. and heart.. expressed at deepest levels.. of human spirit.. but that’s just me.. other folks have totally different outlooks on this.. and that too.. is part of the beautiful diversity.. in all the challenge that can bring too..:)
Ones person’s clouds are another person’s Sun.. and that can be literally true too.. of course.. as some folks love clouds and some folks love Sun.. Sun is too much for some folks.. and clouds are the perfect three bear brew of life.. as is..
And i too.. used to live in the skies of night.. with even streetlights too bright for eyes that see only dark then.. in clouds and nights of light..:)
And there too.. is perhaps the greatest experiences of life.. in walking in so many different human shoes.. if one lives long enough.. to understand that the game is complicated.. but worth tolerating and accepting in all ways.. of differences that come..
As one day we too..
may walk in those other shoes….
And tRuly understand WHY..:)
Earlier this year, on an Internet-class, they introduced the Concrete-Shape poetry. Some of the poems that resulted that exercise were really fierce, enhanced by the shape (I still remember quite a few examples written by class-members, one especially. Sadly, I don’t have the URL).
But as to myself, I’m way too subtle for that…
subtle is good 🙂
I would love to write it even more fierce.. but I always hope my words should come out fierce 🙂
That sounds like a fun class! Wish I’d been there. Is that why it’s fallen out of fashion, do you think, because it’s not ‘subtle’ enough – or is that why it’s popular with children, because it’s very visual and they don’t have to over-interpret things?
What I think is that during earlier centuries humanity had fewer activities to fill an evening, therefore (naturally) books, reading, reciting was a huge part of life. Then the previous century saw the dawn of cinema, then TV and finally the Internet, that brought visual stories on board. This century shortened everything (Facebook one-liner stats?) up to flash-fiction. Everything has an up-side along with a down-side. To this – while a plethora of possibilities leads to quickness of thought, sharpens wits, it also may lead to too quick a judgment. Maybe that’s how the shape poetry got “labeled” childish and put aside… But, of course, it may be something else 🙂
Typically, I write left justified. Single spaced. Line breaks are where reader can take a breath, or where a complete idea exists. I write what I write as a script so I try to give the reader a sense of pacing.
My writing is roughly sheet music to the performance. Also, I never use calligraphy font or center justified – it just looks like its trying too hard.
Also, I believe the work should stay without explanation, hence my very prosaic writing at times.
that’s my approach as well, just what works for me.
I like poetry that stands for itself.. but I also like the process notes that some poets provide.. left adjusted single space is what I like the best too.. (but in wordpress you have to use the HTML mode to get proper single-spacing)
Ah, so that’s why some of my lines come out really badly space, single then double then 1.5! Thanks for clarifying that mystery for me!
The text editor in wordpress is not good for poetry at all…
I so agree with you about some poetry having the appearance of trying too hard, as if the poet said ‘Well, I don’t have much to say on this occasion, but if I throw everything at it, diacritical signs and strange forms, then it will look mysterious and cool’. But I also see some poetry where the form is such an integral part of it, that it couldn’t possibly be any other way.
Sometimes I write a poem with a soft voice: all lower case and possibly over-punctuated. Often a person with a soft voice wants to control everything around them, so this I can replicate with deliberate line breaks, possibly unexpected line breaks, and shorter stanzas. But if I’m feeling bolder, I might use punctuation that gives a staccato tempo, more full-stops, shorter lines but a longer stanzas. Maybe more ch-sounds or fs or t-sounds. But I’d love to try a Calligramme one day. Just for the fun of it.
interesting… I find lower case much easier to read as well. Serif fonts really give me trouble.
I have trouble with some of WordPress’s smaller font sizes – it makes reading quite difficult at times. If my eyes are tired, I have trouble with this red background and white font colour, too.
Ah.. yes we should take a second go at the color.. when I write my poems I always use big tags… to get the size up.
What is a “big tag”?
I just found an option for Zoom Text Only, and what an improvement that makes.
Very interesting comment – that lack of caps and punctuation makes the poem seem softer, the voice more gentle. Certainly the more staccato, short lines, the idiosyncratic exclamation marks and abundance of caps seems more aggressive, more ‘look at me’!
It’s a good reminder not to use exclamation marks.
I think I’m fairly conventional, maybe boring–but who knows, if I’m still around in 10 years I may run wild!
Maybe running wild is something we should try 🙂
I kind of thought you might like that!
We probably all have an innate preferred style, but it can do no harm to play around with something that feels contrary to our nature, to ‘run wild’ as you put it, just to see what happens, and to loosen up that inspiration for when we do return to our comfort zone.
I agree with you–I’m still trying to break free from a strict, suffocating upbringing; thus far, I’ve learned it’s not a felony to “make up” words, or use them other than how I first learned them. And by the way, I LOVE d’Verse!
Awww, thank you, it’s lovely having you here and joining the discussion.
Thank YOU for the warm welcome.
You’ve given us so much to think about here….great topic. The line breaks can really effect the interpretation of the poem or the impact it has…emphasis on words, ending a thought, etc. After I write a poem and want to share it with my husband, I like to read it to him to make sure he hears it the way I intended. Wow, that seems a bit controlling as I write this….but when I create something, I truly hope that what I was trying to convey actually works. I still struggle a bit with line breaks between stanzas as WordPress does not always cooperate depending on how I copy/paste. Sometimes I have to use these….
~
…just to get a line break between stanzas.
Personally, I prefer to capitalize the first word of each line….not sure why, I just like the look.
I don’t use too much punctuation because I like the freedom without it. However, I thoroughly enjoy reading poetry that follows other formats. It is wonderful that we all have our own styles….makes poetry and life even more interesting. 🙂
Oh I love the process of reading it to your husband.. I will never try that with my wife.. 🙂 I think using both punctuation and line-breaks help me. But when I’m writing form, the line-breaks come where they are, and I need punctuation to get a second beat to the iambs..
You touch a sore nerve there – WordPress or other platforms do have a tendency to change the look of the poems. I so much prefer my poetry on a Word document, looking exactly how I want it to look.
I don’t think it sounds too controlling, about wanting your poem to be heard in a certain way. In our writing group we sometimes get other people to read our writing and I always cringe, as it just sounds wrong when others read my poems. But once a poem is written, is it out of our hands, does it become common property, to be interpreted by the reader?
I have visibility problems, with tiny font, and use control plus + until they’re big enough to read without straining.
WordPress is less and less faithful to the author’s layout instructions. It’s becoming quite difficult to post something exactly as you’ve designed it.
On the topic of “does it become common property to be interpreted by the reader,” I have had some interesting experiences. I had a preacher listen to an album my brother and I wrote and give a sermon about. He’d have us come out, play a song, and then he’d preach about this and that meaning. Never did he get exactly what we wrote, or anything really close to be honest, but we just went with it. Those songs were his in a sense.
This also happens with my poetry now. I will write something and nobody seems to get my meaning, or the story, or the basic premise. It’s something I struggle with, too. However, I try to remember a few lines from a Wilco song:
If the whole world’s singing your songs
And all your paintings have been hung
Just remember what was yours is everyone’s
From now on
And that’s not wrong or right
But you can struggle with it all you like
You’ll only get uptight
I’m typically uptight. 😀
A thought provoking question about poetry, MarinaSofina. I would like to think that when I write something from my own intentions, that my interpretation is the reality of the poem.
(hoping no one is throwing peanuts at me now)
On the other hand, I do understand as a reader that we interpret things differently. That is cool, but completely different interpretations to something we hold dear, may not be our goal for writing. Usually when I write, I want the reader to “get” what I was trying to put out there….even though it is out of my hands. Oh it is such a matter of opinion….
It’s tough, isn’t it? I sometimes feel like shouting ‘but you’ve missed the point…’. However, I also run training courses in communication and I have seen how even the simplest of messages in direct communication can be misunderstood, let alone the ambiguous, elliptical verses of poetry. So no surprise really…
Wonderful topic today!
With my original draft, the poem can come out as a big blob of a paragraph with no punctuation or form. As I play with it in editing, both punctuation and line breaks can change until it says as close to what I want it to say as I can get.
I have been called out by a dear reader for being a bit lazy in the capitalization and punctuation dept. And have tried since then to be a bit more focused.
I have never written a shaped poem though I find them clever and admire those that can.
You tempt me to set a shaped poem as a prompt, although I have the feeling we may not get a lot of responses! It seems to be a scary prospect…
I love the way you describe your process: thought and inspiration coming out as an amorphous mass and then being shaped by you into lines and held in place by punctuation.
Shape poetry would be absolutely too difficult in wordpress ..
Hello everyone, I’ve landed, but my hotel web surfing is limited to 30 minutes, so I’d better make hay while the sun shines! (How do I always get into these godforsaken places/hotels where the internet is but a distant rumour?).
Ha, but you sleep better hopefully
Only two years ago, my brother’s employer (a big international bank) sent him to a hotel in London. Even there they were supposed to pay an extra £12 for Internet access.
I stylize depending on what I feel is best for the poem. Most of the time I don’t use punctuation and use line breaks to slightly emphasize pauses; I try to give total freedom to the viewer like an abstract painter. Tho for some, I’ll include full punctuation and won’t do anything special if that fits the piece.
Oooh, I like that comment, whatever best suits the piece. The poem is king, so we do whatever serves it best. I enjoy reading your unpunctuated, nicely spaced poetry – I do feel that sense of freedom for me as a reader.
OK, I think my internet allowance for the night is about to end, so sleep well and see you all again in the morning! Thank you very much for chiming in. I love seeing all your different points of view (and the diversity of styles in your poems).
Good night, MarinaSofia!
What a wonderful subject, and there are too many things I’d like to add!
Lineation is something of a dying art: I like to take care that my line breaks and punctuation enhance the meaning, help with reading aloud and look good on the page. I take the greatest care with the appearance of my submissions.
I am not a fan of spaces in strange places, and weird eruptions of slashes and bars, which for me tend to obscure the sense and flow of a poem. But confess to having to hold myself back from too many dashes, ellipses and exclamation marks.
Capitals at the beginning of each line used to be mandatory, but they do sometimes obscure the sense and make reading aloud more problematic.
Occasional calligram, concrete and shape poems are all great fun to do and to read, and have their niche in the poetry world.
Thanks for bringing this up, Marina.
As I write my poems, the form seems to impose itself. Sometimes I use a single solid stanza, other times short stanzas. Similarly the length of the line will vary. I only use a capital letter at the beginning of the opening line but not for other lines. I have no idea why I like this but I do. Interestingly I never do this in other aspects of my writing life and actually dislike it when other people do it in emails, posts, etc.
Isn’t it funny how we instinctively use one style for our poetry and something completely different for other types of communication? I’ve discovered that too in myself.
Excellent topic indeed! I tend to write left justified. I tend to put the same number of lines in each stanza. It could be 3 lines, 4 lines, possibly 5 lines. I guess I like a consistent look for my own poetry. When I first began writing poetry I used pretty standard punctuation. Now I use much less. Often only a capital letter at the beginning of the poem and a period at the end…or a similar theme. I am glad poetry writing has more flexible ‘rules’ than it did when the classic poets were writing.
As for the kind of poetry I enjoy reading, I would say that I like to read a wide variety of styles that are easy on the eye. I prefer poems single spaced to those that are double spaced and make me scroll and scroll and scroll.
I have enjoyed what others have said as well. Thanks, Marina, for introducing this.
Isn’t it fascinating how passionate we can get about this subject – non-poets must be yawning and wondering what all the fuss is about! It’s interesting also what you say, Mary, about your style evolving over time – that you now use less punctuation, for instance, but you still like consistency and symmetry. Perhaps some of our self-imposed ‘rules’ are non-negotiable, while others are flowing.
Exactly….I think a poet should not stop the flow but allow the evolving as it happens.
I think the use of double punctuation is a problem in wordpress mostly. To get single space you have to write the poem in html mode. Otherwise every new line is treated as a new paragraph… Maybe a good advice to take from this discussion… I agree that double space looks strange mostly.
Interesting, Bjorn! I had not known that about writing poems in WordPress. This is not true of Blogger.
I have noted that.. I like many other aspects of wordpress… especially the handling of comments.. but you have to take care writing poetry.. .but once you learnt a little html it’s all fine.
Have to learn html then, because that double spacing does drive me nuts!
Not a lot you need to learn.. just write the text as is in the editor.. then it will come out fine.
Left-justified usually to open the poem. Something learned from Brian & Claudia is that words,phrases can migrate all over the page. I write in longhand in prose paragraphs, & somehow, each time, the line breaks & word placement create themselves; kind of a gut-instinct Zen creative process. I love watching the poem “shape’ it self. Second & third blue-pencilling can change it around once it has been splashed all over the page. There usually are ascending/descending lines, sprinkled stanzas of haiku & lunes, with haibun-like prose paragraphs. I just do not number my stanza lines; the stanzas bolt out ahead of me, & when they pause, I drop a colon or semi-colo to continue the thought, until fully explored it rates a period. Years ago I began heading my poems with a quote. I favor using dialogue when apropos, & italics or bold letters for emphasis. When your eye first looks at one of my poems, you become aware of a dozen set of Stops, vertical lines, or diagonals, or staircase shapes, resembling a kind of Paul Klee feel to it. I key the start of new lines off repeated words or the first letter. A poem is alive. It looks a certain way before it’s read,then the words conjure meaning, direction,POV & message. Then I record it to enhance & expand the reader’s options, hoping there are at least four dimensions to it; shape, meaning after reading, Listening to the recitation alone as spoken word performance, then listening to it again while re-reading it.
You were one of the poets I was thinking about as I wrote this: the marriage of sound and the shape of the poem on the screen. I seldom mix italics or bolds within my poem, but they work very well in yours. And I’ve never used a semi-colon in my poetry yet, I don’t think, while in my prose or normal writing I use it all the time.
Semicolons and m-dashes are a few of my favorite punctuation marks.. I should use more italics I think.. that’s a great way to get the sound more visible.
How we present our poems seems to be a bit more contentious than I figured it would be. I guess, as one would expect, poets are quite passionate about form and presentation, and I certainly am. So, hold on to your butts…
First, due to wordpress’s limitations, at least on my browser, I have not been able to do shaped poems when the mood has struck me. The formatting always gets off and jumbled and the shape is totally lost. This means that a “shape poem” prompt would be totally lost on me as it would turn into a muddled mass of confusion.
As for form, I like it. Some of you who have read my poems probably have noticed my affinity for form, whether it be haiku or common meter or some other out-dated style, but I feel there’s a good reason for it. I think being able to use and abuse the form can give an additional layer of meaning. For example, a poem in common meter can use variations to comment on the reliability of the speaker, highlight meaning, color or “paint” a line to emphasize a point, and/or variate the iambs to create lulls and emphasis, like a pyrrhic or a trochee substitution, to comment on the line. This is something I’m not able to do in free-verse that I hope to be able to do more articulately in my form poems.
I also show a bit of my influences in this way, attempting to honor the poets before me that have really captured my imagination. Musically, I do this as well. We can hear hints of other musicians in their articulation, just as a dash or form can nod towards a favorite poet. Additionally, I may play jazz or country or rock to flavor what I’m doing, just as using a particularly form can create a setting or mode for understanding. This goes for the language, as well. I use some older, archaic language not to sound “haughty” (seriously, I don’t like even calling myself a poet because of that), but to set a mood or style
Form also gives me a chance to break the rules. It may read as sloppy, but form variation can be used as a device to show freedom, overcoming bondage, or libertine wantonness. That’s not to say that these things cannot be articulated in free-verse, but that there is an opportunity in form to add extended meaning. Using form, standard punctuation, and justification in general hopefully allows for when I use non-standard conventions to have more of a punch. I hope the reader thinks, “why is there a trochee where there should be an iamb,” or something of that nature.
I am unable to do these variations in free-verse, so it’s my own limitations that probably force me to rely on the forms. I admire those who are able to write excellent verse without the conventions, but there is a case to be made for use of forms.
I apologize for the length of this rant. I will stop now. 🙂
That is one of the clearest explanations (and most impassioned arguments) for form that I have heard to date. I tend to agree with that: the greatest freedom can be achieved within a constraint, when we break free of it or subvert it.
And I take your point about the formatting – it seems to be a bugbear for all of us, so a shape poem prompt would not produce the desired results!
I fully agree with breaking the form.. and I tend to do that by adding the punctuation that is not synchronized with the form. In say a sonnet you let the sentences run across line breaks.. and adding it like it were prose. That way you add that extra beat that help the reader along (hopefully). That’s why fans of free-verse often will not notice that it’s written to form, and form lovers will identify the meter and the rhymes immediately.
Enjoyed reading the comments that have sprouted up overnight. Need to go to work now, but will be back later in the afternoon (my time), so keep on adding your thoughts. Thank you all for your very passionate discussion!
I have always used left alignment. The word program usually capitalizes the first letter of every line. If I had my way, i’d keep first lines lower case when between sentences. My line breaks usually are pauses…sort of like a pause in conversation.
Usually when i’m writing, the poem sort of just speaks to me…it’s an innate thing to know when to start a new stanza.
I like short lines, long lines. Sometimes even prose.
As long as I’m writing it down, I’m pretty content with whatever form is most convenient on the word processor.
However, when I first write a poem (i write in a notebook, then type later), i tend to have this form I use for my very first draft. I use a regular composition notebook with lines. I draw a line down the page to create a larger column on the left, and a smaller on the right. As I write the poem on the left (or sometimes before) i jot down random words or ideas that come to me in the right-side column. Usually I try to weave those ideas into the actual poem as I write it.
I hope that makes sense! I love this topic. This is my first time ever partaking in the discussion here. 🙂
Ah.. yes word is not the the best tool for writing indeed… as I write mostly in google docs (so I can bring up my mobile phone and edit it more), it does not bother about auto-edit. I like to use capital letters when it makes sentence – sense. I think that most of my poems nowadays are punctuated as if they were prose, but I add the line breaks to get the in-sentence pauses (or when the form makes it mandatory). But all this is matter of style..
I find that most templates use to small fonts so I tend to use larger fonts too.. but I would love to be able to play around more with that.
bjorn, i totally agree. that small font just makes my eyes hurt! i also find that once i have the poem in a blog draft on blogger, it’s a lot easier to see the overall effect and what needs edited.
I feel honoured that you are taking part in the discussion and hope it will be the first of many. I LOVE the idea of your two-column draft of a poem – makes perfect sense to me and I think I might ‘borrow’ this henceforth.
And yes, I always have to fight Word NOT to capitalise every new line…
thank you so much, Marina. you are most welcome to borrow it! i hope it helps you as much as it has me.
I actually began to use the column approach with wordles. I would put my word list in the right-hand column as I wrote in the left. But I found that if I always wrote with the columns, the blank space was a great help!
I’m glad to be at dverse. i’ve found a great bit of inspiration from this site, though life and other creative projects have kept me from the weekly poetry prompts. i hope to get back to those very soon! 🙂
Love that “Fox” fragment… Lately I’ve begun typing my works directly into the computer, although if it isn’t at hand any scrap of paper will do. I’m not completely happy with the strictures imposed by the word processor, though. When I compile my book I’ll have to find a better format.
I’ll probably be scarce for a while from the Pub. I’ll be in a new neighborhood, exploring life with that wealthy widow who has finally snagged me, touring in her luxury RV. Never actually thought it would happen… I’ll document our Amazing Adventure! She’s an amazing woman, full of red fire and blistering energy.
Sounds like the stuff poems are made of! Have fun on your adventures.
And yes, I do think in printed form the poems can have a much more interesting shape and be exactly the way we want them to be.
Who would have told Picasso or Rembrandt they were not painting right?
Only those that feel the need to control others.
It is all preference.
I’m sure many critics or bourgeouis viewers didn’t think they were painting right at all… maybe some even told them. And we all use words, so it’s much easier to criticise a writer, while fewer of us can paint.