Are there punctuation in poems

But in the end, the use of punctuation is mostly a visual one, since typographical marks are usually unpronounced elements of the poem that only appear in written form; it matters little to the oral tradition, which for me is always the final test. In my case, the absence of punctuation has the additional advantage of liberating my mind during the writing process, unstapling it from my past, so to speak.

He is a contributing editor at KYSOflash. Illustrations by: Anthony Tremmaglia. Anthony Tremmaglia is an Ottawa-based illustrator, artist, and educator. Then I'd let the editors correct it. I would have added quotes around the last two lines, like this: Crying through the locks, "Are all the children in their beds?

Okay, I'll let Verla correct it! I agree- it should have the quotes. Okay, if it were prose and the word "because" were substituted for the word "for" would you still put the question mark after the 7th line instead of after the 8th? It seems to me the two words have equivalent meaning here. To me, "For now it's eight o'clock," is not a complete sentence, so the question mark should go after the last line. But--when it came down to deciding how it would be printed in the book and I did get to make the decision , Verla and Cindy, you'll be glad to know it got printed the way you thought was correct.

There were just too many grammar experts in our extended family who agreed with you. As for nursery rhyme books already in print, they aren't consistent--some have the question mark after the 7th line and some after the 8th. Regarding the quotation marks--yes, they're needed for prose and probably for modern poetry, but I'd be surprised if you can find any books of nursery rhymes which use them for this poem or any other.

I couldn't find any. So, I went with the traditional formatting, and my Venn book does not use quotation marks.

I was using "poetic license" in putting the? If I was writing it in prose, I'd probably reword it because then I'd feel as you- that the? Bill Posts: Status: Offline.

Reeny, To answer your last question first, absolutely not. Not every line needs end punctuation. It's perfectly okay to have periods that don't fall at the end of a stanza. I would recommend punctuating as you would prose. The reason for punctuation in prose is clarity.

Poems need clarity, too! I've read numerous poems that haven't been punctuated and often it's hard to make heads or tails what the author is saying. I agree with Verla that rhyming picture books present different considerations from poems. If a line is interrupted in the middle by an illustration and then by a turn of the page, for example, this obviously will have an effect both on the pacing of the meter and the way a reader organizes the text in his or her mind in the process of reading.

Since punctuation functions to assist in such organization, and to help provide clarity, I can easily see altering some of the "rules" of punctuation if there are pictures and lay-out considerations at play. If a clause is already set off by being contained on its own two-page spread, it may not be necessary to set it off in commas. Lay-out can function as punctuation. The original question, though, wasn't about picture books, but specifically about "poems," and Verla on a recent thread made clear that she draws a big distinction between writing rhyming children's books and being a "poet.

Although I'm not sure I draw the distinction quite as starkly, I do think there is a distinction in the context of the punctuation question. For "poems" I stand by what I said and what Bill is now saying. Commas are the weakest form of punctuation since a comma is not strong enough to hold a complete sentence. Use a question mark or exclamation point for major emphasis. In poetry, these are some of the least often used punctuation marks, meaning they should be used only for special occasions.

Insert a dash when you need a pause that requires more emphasis than a comma but does not require a full stop. Megan Weber began writing professionally in Her expertise is travel, specifically through Europe and the United Kingdom, and literature.

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