ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

I Do Love. Punctuation.

I do love. Punctuation
It eases. All narration
It: matters quite a lot
That you. Find the proper spot
To put full: stop and colon
To let the story. Roll on
Of course the cool...ellipsis
All other marks. Eclipses.

Stephen Whiteside 27.03.2013

A truer word has ne'er been spoken,
for by such sins may hearts be broken.

Hi Stephen,
I understand the need for it - just wish I had a better handle on it.

I'm reading an old poetry book: 'The Wide Brown Land' and came across a C.J. Dennis poem I quite like: 'When The Suns Behind The Hill'. I'm sure you know the poem, but I hadn't seen it before.

Terry

Only rings a faint bell, Terry. I'll check it out.

Dear Stephen,
I want a man who knows what love is all about.
You are generous, kind, thoughtful.
People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior.
You have ruined me for other men.
I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we're apart.
I can be forever happy, will you let me be yours?

Martina

or is that . . .

Dear Stephen,
I want a man who knows what love is.
All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you.
Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me.
For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever.
When we're apart, I can forever be happy.
Will you let me be?
Yours,
Martina

Well done Marty, It ain't what ya say it is the way that you say it !


Bit like " What is this thing called love?"

Or "What is this thing called ?"

Love.


Bob

G'day all,

Stephen, please humour me by turning off the automatic 'capital' in your word processor. Or are you placing a capital by intent?
Long ago, in the distant past, the habit of starting ever line of a poem with a capital was stopped.
Now we only use a capital where we normally would in any other piece of writing.
This I believe. Am I correct?
Could someone with a University Degree in English please clarify this point.
Or is there no 'rule' as to whether you use a capital at the start of each line or not?
I only use a capital at the start of a line
if I would use it in a letter to my sister,
for example.

This is not a poem - only a way to demonstrate what I have in mind. Help please.

zondrae wrote:Or is there no 'rule' as to whether you use a capital at the start of each line or not?

Correct Zondrae. For poetry there is no rule.

In contemporary poetry some writers do not capitalise the beginning of each line, but some do.
It's a matter of choice as far as I can see. I could be wrong but didn't the poet e.e.cummings go to the extreme and write all his stuff in lower case.

I ask the question Zondrae, in the English language, on what authority does a usage or a preference become a command, when does a command become a rule or a law. In other words WHO SEZ !
I haven't yet been given the answer.



p.s. My only qualification in English is that I got a basic working knowledge between ages 1 and 5 and have tried to pick whatever I can along the way since.

The question of whether each new line of poetry should begin with a capital letter is indeed (at least for me ) a very vexing one. The current fashion seems to be to do away with capitals, however I have discovered a number of websites that discuss this subject and many of the authors quoted on those sites offer very cogent arguments for the continuance of the capitalization of each line.
Most of the sites I refer to can be found with a Google search of capitalization poetry rules. I think many will be surprised by what they discover.

Vic Jefferies wrote:The question of whether each new line of poetry should begin with a capital letter is indeed (at least for me ) a very vexing one. The current fashion seems to be to do away with capitals, however I have discovered a number of websites that discuss this subject and many of the authors quoted on those sites offer very cogent arguments for the continuance of the capitalization of each line.
Most of the sites I refer to can be found with a Google search of capitalization poetry rules. I think many will be surprised by what they discover.

I did this and I was surprised how passionate and rigid some people are about the rules. Even though I'm a bit of a purist with grammar, I do love to break rules of any kind!