Punctuation and Breaks in Poetry

I am a victim of excessively using punctuation marks sometimes in my writings; which comes as the result of my background (University degree & Career). However what I find worse than using them excessively is not using them at all, especially in lengthy poems.

In poetry usually these rules take their own path, poets/writers drop everything that slows down the rhythm and pace, because it negatively influence the poem. In many cases it bores the reader and could set them off.

But then again, I am a reader, and when I deal with a lengthy poem that has not one comma, no line break, no period, no nothing, I get lost and the poem makes no sense to me.

The reason why I brought this topic is that I've come across a couple of poems that honestly held beautiful expressions and depth, yet gave me hard times to understand and to know where I had to pause and where I had to link certain images and expressions or where I had to stop. In most cases I drop the whole poem aside...And I wanted to hear what others thought about this...

I believe if the writer chose not to use punctuation marks at all, they should do their best to grant signs to the reader for a correct reading of their poem.

Too many breaks and stops have the power to weaken the flow and to slow the lines, where poor lead of poems has the power to change the meaning if not influence the whole piece.

Brilliant topic! It drives me mad when people write punctuation poems and not actual poems, but they also drive me mad when they don't use any punctuation

Let it gooooooooooooooooooo
let it goooooooooooooooo

Over and under punctuation can be rather distracting.

Punctuation is my biggest concern in my own writing; where the line breaks are positioned vs. where the punctuation should be placed. i'm enjoying experimenting with punctuation and breaking sentences in to two lines to add a different emphasis on words/imagery but i don't think a lot of people understand what i'm hoping to achieve (at least from the feedback i've gotten in places other than here). same as typing only in lowercase (which kind of counters my whole "use proper grammar" argument, but i like being a contradiction).

at the end of the day, poetry is a literary form and thus requires the use of punctuation; such as our own thought processes which come in fragments separated by our internal grammar. i used to automatically dismiss a poem when i saw no punctuation but then i realised some of my favourite poems do not use any either,

eg.

good advice for someone like me - leonard cohen

behind the pain
someone is rejoicing

behind the torture
there is love

who's going to buy
this bullshit

if you don't become the ocean
you'll be seasick
every day

---

so then i remembered that to every rule there is an exception - the short lines in this poem do not call for any additional punctuation as every stanza is a sentence on its own.

long story short: i agree with the original post. in long poems, punctuation is required in order for the poem to make any sense. in short pieces, this does not apply as the break in stanza implies a break in the sentence.

Nana, when you say a poem that is long without a line break or punctuation, do you mean like a huge wall-o-text paragraph? Something more in story form?

Coffee hasn't kicked in yet and I'm trying to understand what ya mean :)

I get the same impression, Britt: just a long "wall-o-Text"

Rania, can you link to the examples?

My comment may not be useful but I am assuming that those who write lengthy poems with no line breaks or punctuation might do the same as I do most of the times - write as it comes, Just Spit and post with out editing.

If poetry is supposed to flow, what does punctuation do?

it breaks the flow, leave it alone. personally I'm not a big fan of it, and this is an age old argument. Some say no, others say yes, it's a matter of preference to the writer I imagine. I don't believe there should ever be any punctuation after a line, but that's just me......

I agree with you I use a lot of punctuation and line breaks in my poems, as well, partly because of my elementary and secondary training (education), but also I like to set the pace (rhythm), of my poems. Sometimes, i add or remove punctuation, depending on what plays better auditorily. And I too hate a long poem that gives you no sort of pacing (guide to flow). A really good poem should leave you stirred, inspired, moved, not confused nor confounded for that matter, lest that was the intent, the feeling it was suppose to give you.

Haha I wish it was this easy, Yaki.
I find it hard punctuating, too. It's much easier in Arabic. Whenever you want to take a breath, insert a comma! Easy!

Even when I obsess over punctuation I miss it by a mile occasionally. This past week a judge made an observation regarding my poem that a phrase (each & every) should have been set off by commas. My only possible reaction was to (figuratively) slap my forehead and think "of course!"

I was once pretty good at grammar, vocab, etc. I've gotten so bad. I blame texting. Also, my boss is a brilliant woman, but she drafts rush reports that are so messy, it's eroded my editing skills. I often have to skip over restructuring entire sentences because of deadlines, and lately I don't know what the hell commas are for LOL. It's not her fault. She's BUSY and pumps out complicated reports like a machine.

In poetry, they say every word, every piece of punctuation should be there because it's necessary. But who's they? They sound like a know-it-all ;)

Sadly that is where I fall down. I have no idea how to punctuate poetry correctly. I was very good at English at school and college but it's been over thirty years since I had to use punctuation so I am beyond rusty. I guess I don't use comma's in my poetry unless I think its a pause but then seeing this post that's probably one of the reasons that my poetry isn't very successful :(