Do I sound self-important? Eew.

Hey! We don't really know each other but I get your poetry posts. I'm making a book for my personal project this summer and I'm just confused about one thing. I don't understand where commas and periods and capital letters are supposed to go in a poem. Is there like a rul that periods go at the end of each stanza or something? It's been so long since we went all over this in school.
Well if you can help I'd be so grateful.
You're a great poet and I can't wait to read more of your work!
Thanks,
Olivia


***

Olivia,

I don't know where I know you from. I'm glad you like my posts! But to answer your question-

The whole point of poetry, especially modern poetry, is being able to say what you want however you want. Great poets (I mean the really good ones) watch every comma and period and capital because it all has to mean something- punctuation has a lot to do with how a poem flows.

If you want an example of a great poet using capitals and punctuation really well, read this poem - http://lovepoems.yu-hu.com/cummings/since_feeling_is_first.shtml Do you see how he only uses 3 capital letters? One is to make Spring feel like a person, another is to replace quotation marks, and the last one, the And, is to make sure we know this is the concluding line. He doesn't use punctuation marks at all in the normal way- to separate ideas he puts them on different lines. Where he does use punctuation it's to show where natural pauses go, and also to change meaning a little bit.

Here's another example-

Say we made up a haiku.

Olivia, you
typed to me across the sea-
Commas? Capitals?

Now, if we wanted to change the meaning-

Olivia? You
typed to me! Across the sea;
commas, capitals

and it would completely change the meaning. Before it sounded like you were making an inquiry, now it sounds like I'm excited to see you again, no matter what we talk about. And there, were only using capitals because we were starting sentences. We could maybe do-

OLIVIA! you
typed- to me. ACROSS (the sea)
: commas ; capitals :

Then we would be using the first capitals to make me sound like I'm yelling, and the other ones to quote your typing. I'm not even pretending like this one could make any sense at all :P

I hope I showed you that the little differences do matter- but that the only rule is do what you want. Now, if you're writing a more formal poem you might have to pay more attention to sentences and the punctuation that goes with it, but in most poetry you're okay as long as you're happy with what you've written.

I hope this helped a little bit- I would love to read some of your poems!

-Emily