Poetry punctuation help/advice needed

Cafe Society
1

Hi all-

I’m planning to break up a poem into several different pieces and I was wondering if punctuation was important. I was thinking about a triptych or perhaps even something less structured, maybe a couplet on each piece. Maybe even less structured than that…I might go completely free form, I don’t know. (The reason I call them pieces is I plan on doing this in pen & ink.) Anyways…I’m planning on using the lyrics to a song by Van Morrison and I found the lyrics online , but there isn’t any punctuation whatsoever included.

How important is punctuation in the manner in which I plan to use the language? I have no idea, at the moment, where I plan to break the lyrics right now. I might put one line by itself, then 3 lines…hell, i might put a single word on a piece of paper by itself and follow that up with the rest of the line on another piece of paper… I just don’t know right now.

How should this, as is, be punctuated?



Whenever God shines his light on me 
Opens up my eyes so I can see
When I look up in the darkest night
I know everything's going to be alright
In deep confusion, in great despair
When I reach out for him he is there
When I am lonely as I can be
I know that God shines his light on me

Reach out for him, he'll be there
With him your troubles you can share
If you live the life you love
You get the blessing from above
He heals the sick and heals the lame
Says you can do it too in Jesus name

He'll lift you up and turn you around
And put your feet back on higher ground

Reach out for him, he'll be there
With him your troubles you can share
You can use his higher power
In every day and any hour
He heals the sick and heals the lame
Says you can do it too in Jesus name

He'll lift you up and turn you around
And put your feet back on higher ground.

Video: WHENEVER GOD SHINES HIS LIGHT - VAN MORRISON - YouTube

2

Punctuation in a poem is a very personal thing.

But there are some good ideas and guidelines to follow, such as:[ul][]If it’s the end of a thought, use a period.[]A line feed, carriage return (new line) does not automatically mean “stop.”If the reader should pause at the end of a line, there needs to be a comma, in the same way as a pause in the middle of the line needs one.[/ul]So those are the suggestions prompted by your sample. Many lines cry out for a period or comma after, but not all. Paragraphs usually end with periods, too, in spite of your double line breaks. Anything else is a matter of design or personal taste.

3

What he said.

Punctuation in poetry is purely a matter of choice.

If you have to ask this question then you aren’t that confident as a poet. Read more, write more.

You’ll find that poets tend to ignore any / all rules for better or worse.

What rules you ignore and the way you ignore them will come to be your “voice.” embrace it.

Just like your speaking voice sometime it will say dumb shit but sometimes it will spew brilliance.

Let it go - and read the ones who have let it go before you.

Zeke

TLDR
Poetic Licence

4

Here’s how I would punctuate your work. Keep in mind that some of my decisions are personal taste, and you have every right to disagree with them. Most of them, not all!

Whenever God shines his light on me,
Opens up my eyes so I can see,
When I look up in the darkest night,
I know everything’s going to be alright.
In deep confusion, in great despair,
When I reach out for him, he is there.
When I am lonely as I can be,
I know that God shines his light on me.

Reach out for him, he’ll be there;
With him, your troubles you can share.
If you live the life you love,
You get the blessing from above.
He heals the sick, and heals the lame;
Says, you can do it, too, in Jesus’ name.

He’ll lift you up, and turn you around,
And put your feet back on higher ground.

Reach out for him, he’ll be there;
With him, your troubles you can share.
You can use his higher power
In every day and any hour.
He heals the sick and heals the lame,
Says, you can do it, too, in Jesus’ name.

He’ll lift you up, and turn you around,
And put your feet back on higher ground.

5

Zeke? Musicat? Thank you. My mind is easier now. (I only have 233 little details left to solve, but this was a big one for me.)

-the 0

ETA-Musicat? I ran this thru Word & Illustrator to get some general ideas as to flow, and this is working out very nicely. Feel free to add anything I might have neglected to mention. Still, once again,*** thank you*** to both of you.

6

Since it’s your darling, you get to do whatever feels right to you. It’s difficult for me to even give any feedback on poetry, since it’s such a personal art form. I am not a poet, although I have a graduate degree in literature, so take the following with a grain (or pound) of salt:

I love the English language, including its punctuation. As a reader, I typically don’t stop at a line break unless there is some reason to do so–in other words, I understand and appreciate enjambment.

However, to the untrained, like my freshmen/sophomore college students, they will usually default to stopping or pausing on the end of a line, even if enjambed, and will usually do a half-stop at a comma and a full stop at a period or semi-colon. This can work really well, but it can also terribly disrupt the rhythm of the piece.

My advice would be this: each time you revise, read the poem aloud. Maybe even have a non-poet outsider read it aloud to you. Listen to the rhythm, the pauses, the stops, and see if it fits what your intention is inside your head. If there’s a pause at one of those non-essential elements commas, and you don’t think there should be, just get rid of the comma. Don’t worry about the grammar rules; worry about the flow.

Also, feel free to isolate lines, even if they’re part of what would normally be a “paragraph” in prose. Sometimes you want a particular line to stand out. Give it its own stanza, or indent it, or whatever. I personally wouldn’t get too stuck on tercets, quatrains, etc., unless you’re really wanting to compose a closed-form poem like a sonnet.

7

This is good. I just wanted to say that if it were up to me to edit this, I would have added all the interior punctuation and the possessive apostrophe that Musicat has. I think I would have put the periods at the end of sentences, but I would have left all the commas off at the end of lines, letting the enjambment do the work of the punctuation. Strictly a personal choice. Mine would look more like this -

I’m not in the least offended if you prefer Musicat’s version to mine - it’s all subjective.
By the way, would you be at all interested in our SDMB Poetry Sweatshops?

8

Have you ever read Ezra Pound or E. E. Cummings? Critic’s will say that a person’s verse has no rhyme or meter as to satisfy the word ART, no avoidance.

ART, in any form, is subjective.

Emily Dickinson used chiefly dashes — as punctuation.

My poetry book from College, co-authored by Robert Penn Warren, disected Kilmer’s TREES, and while it is admired by many, the critique was, it was a bad poem.

9

O, here is the book Understanding Poetry, I still have it from decades ago.

I am at the llibrary doing law research, but from memory, it analyzes Dickinson’s Because I could not stop for death, Kipling’s Danny Deever, and A.E. Houseman, but can’t recall the poem, When I was one and twenty, I think and William Carlos William’s Red Wheelbarrow.

I remember specifically about Emily’s poem, it was critiqued as one of the greatest ever written.

10

My sainted grandmother, May She Rest in Peace, was a respected dramatic arts, speech and English literature teacher. She trained me to generally ignore the end of lines if they didn’t have any punctuation. I don’t know if that was a stylistic concept of the times, a personal touch, or more generally used, but that’s the way I tend to read poetry out loud.

Enjambment be damned! :slight_smile:

11

Wow! Thanks everybody! I am continually amazed at the intellectual nimbleness of the board. I appreciate both your knowledge and time, but perhaps most of all, your experience. I’m still fleshing this thing out (and I probably will be for some time) and I’m glad that I have a reference to this.

An aside to Le Ministre…I’m no poet sir. These words are not mine even tho I’m feeling them now more than ever.

Thank you everybody!