Jenna Kingsley
Dr. Colvin
English 205
14 December 2015
Final Project: Punctuation in Poetry
Introduction:
Selecting my theme of “Punctuation in Poetry” was one of those Aha-moments. I
had already selected a theme, “Otherness in America,” but I was finding that it was much
too broad to accomplish. However, I was having major writer’s block––or rather, poetry
anthology curator’s block––trying to pare down my current topic or come up with a new
one. I entered our class meeting in MARBL with a feeling of dejection; how was this
session going to help me if I had no idea what my project was even on? That’s when I
saw a tiny book in the front of the room with no words on the title, just a bold comma and
an exclamation mark. And then I knew.
Punctuation is a topic I’ve been passionate about my whole life. My mother is a
sixth grade English teacher, so as a child, I grew up in a grammatically structured world.
Verbally, my mother would correct my “who”s to “whom”s, and on paper, she’d make
sure my grammar and punctuation were on point. When I was young, she’d sing to me a
song that she sang to her class when teaching them how to form compound sentences: “A
sentence over here and a sentence over there and a comma and a conjunction!” As I grew
up, I became as much of a stickler for grammar as my mother; I edited my friends’
college essays, I got excited any time I saw a typo in a book, and I was that annoying
student who would go up to a teacher if they marked my grammar off and insist that, no,
they were the one who was wrong (they were the one who was wrong, though). As an
avid reader, a budding writer, and lover of organization and structure, I took solace in
grammatical rules, particularly punctuation. I loved spicing up my sentences with
commas or parentheses or dashes; without them, reading and writing was boring. I loved
semicolons so much that I got a tattoo of one; there’s probably some deep, meaningful
reason, but the main reason was just that I liked semicolons. So it’s no surprise that I
jumped at a chance to complete a project on a topic I’ve loved so much for so long.
I genuinely enjoyed assembling this collection of poems. It allowed me to
rediscover old favorites, like Ciaran Carson’s “Belfast Confetti” while also exploring new
art forms with books like Pete Spence’s “[Comma, Exclamation Point].” Seeing texts I’ve
known and loved for a long while in a new light was also a treat––after working with
Chaucer all semester for my Honors Thesis, it was refreshing to approach the text with a
new perspective. What I enjoyed most about the way I assembled the anthology was the
structure; as a lover of grammar, it’s intuitive that I’m also a lover of structure. I find a
weird, erratic joy in structuring things––arguments, essays, to-do lists, etc. I chose to
organize this project into four categories––punctuation as a central theme, punctuation
that proves a point, lack of punctuation, and punctuation in translation. The four
categories I created for the poems helped me conceptualize how the punctuation works
within the poetry in many different ways.
In terms of impact, my project has three aims. As far as I know, there are already
poems about punctuation, and there are already anthologies of poems, but there aren’t
any anthologies full of punctuation-specific poems. So, I’d like to compile a unique set of
poems around a theme I truly care about. Additionally, by posting my project to my
website, I hope to bring joy or amusement to any fellow poetry and punctuation lovers.
Most importantly, I hope to bring to light the importance of these small dots and lines as
grammatical tools that can inspire or transform literature.
PART 1: PUNCTUATION AS A CENTRAL THEME
Poem 1: “Belfast Confetti” by Ciaran Carson
Citation: Carson, Ciaran. "Belfast Confetti." The Poetry Archive. Arts Council England,
1987. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.
Annotation: I consider Carson’s poem to be the “crown jewel,” so to speak, of my
project. Punctuation is at the heart of his poem. I read the poem in my Irish poetry
seminar; it follows the narrator’s (presumably Carson’s) experience with Belfast confetti,
or a type of Molotov cocktail, during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. In the poem, the
Belfast confetti, a bomb usually comprised of sharp scrap metal, is actually comprised of
punctuation. As the riot squad moves in, in addition to raining “nuts, bolts, nails, car
keys,” it was also “raining exclamation marks.” Carson compares Belfast to an asterisk
on a map, but this “hyphenated line” is “a burst of rapid fire” instead of a peaceful city.
As Carson tries to get away, he attempts to form a full sentence in his head, but he’s
blocked––physically, by scrap metal, but metaphorically, by “stops and colons.” Carson
suggests that “Every move is punctuated” in this city he knows so well. Because this
phrase is followed shortly after by “Dead end again,” I took his claim that every move is
punctuated to mean that life in Belfast could end quickly, at any time, due to the constant
fighting in the area. In this sense, punctuation is seen as hazardous or violent. Punctuation
is indeed destructive in the poem: instead of bullets coming from a firing squad, the
weapon is a “fusillade of question marks.” I think Carson chose to portray punctuation as
a weapon because he is a poet and the way he is coming to terms with the violence is
through words and grammar. However, he might also be suggesting that punctuation has
a power of its own; perhaps words, or how words are structured, also have the capacity to
be violent.
Poem 2: “[Comma, Exclamation Point]” by Pete Spence
Citation: Spence, Pete. [Comma, Exclamation Point]. Achill Island, Ireland: Redfoxpress,
2010. Print.
Annotation: Pete Spence’s [Comma, Exclamation Point] is an artists’ book printed by
Redfoxpress. The book is comprised of a series of one-page art pieces containing white
and black space and various numbers and forms of punctuation. It fits within this section
because punctuation is, yet again, a central theme. In some pieces, the punctuation
becomes the focus of the page; in others, punctuation is integrated into the larger piece. It
was difficult for me to find a deeper meaning in the book’s pages other than as beautiful,
quirky arrangements of letters and punctuation. I tried using word unscramblers with the
random lettering on the pages and tried to apply the punctuation to form sentences, but it
made absolutely no sense. The longest word I ended up forming was “bitchier,” which I
really do not think was the point of the artwork. So, I decided to interpret the artists’ book
as a visual work showing punctuation used in a different way: as art, sheer art. I like this
interpretation because it fits with my mentality about my semicolon tattoo; I got it
primarily as a piece of art. Yes, I could ascribe some deeper meaning to it, but my
favorite thing about the tattoo is enjoying the beauty in the curved lines. It’s pretty just
because it is. People can try to dig deeper, both with my tattoo and with this book, but at
the end of the day, the beauty lies in accepting the art for what it is.
PART 2: PUNCTUATION THAT PROVES A POINT
Poem 3: “Southern History” by Natasha Trethewey
Citation: Trethewey, Natasha D. "Southern History." Native Guard. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 2006. 38. Print.
Annotation: “Southern History” follows the story of a young Trethewey in her senior
year southern history class. She is brought to angry tears by her teacher’s statement that
African Americans had it better under slavery. Her teacher’s suggestion silences the
young Trethewey and also silences the suffering of her ancestors. I’ve chosen to include
this poem in this section because the punctuation serves as a vehicle for Trethewey to
portray her frustration through irony. The poem’s punctuation embellishes Trethewey’s
sarcasm: “Before the war, they were happy, he said./ (This was senior-year/ history
class.)” Trethewey’s parentheses allow her to give a side comment to the reader, as if
she’s rolling her eyes as she says it. She seems to be thinking, Can you believe this?!
Trethewey uses punctuation again to show the irony later in the poem, saying, “It was
late; we still had Reconstruction/ to cover before the test, and –– luckily ––/ three hours
of watching Gone with the Wind.” The dashes allow Trethewey to lace “luckily” with
heavy sarcasm. Additionally, she uses a semicolon instead of a full stop after “late” to
show the pace of learning in the classroom; there was no time to discuss the truth of the
Old South, because they had to keep on moving. Therefore, the punctuation serves the
poetry by supporting Trethewey’s frustrated, ironic tone.
Poem 4: “Calvary Crossing a Ford” by Walt Whitman
Citation: Whitman, Walt. "Cavalry Crossing a Ford." Drum-Taps (1865) a Machine
Readable Transcription -. The Walt Whitman Archive, 1865. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.
Annotation: Whitman’s “Cavalry Crossing a Ford” is pretty self-explanatory. It follows
the story of a cavalry completing the arduous task of crossing a ford. However, Whitman
uses punctuation to portray the teamwork required of the task and the cavalry’s fluidity of
motion. There is only one full stop in the poem, and it comes at the end, when some
cavalry members reach the other bank. All other sentences are connected to each other
with semicolons. These semicolons create a continuous feeling in the poem. The cavalry
takes a “serpentine course” and winds “betwixt green islands”; in the same way, the
sentences flow into each other. The poem mimics the cavalry’s crossing: some members
are just entering the ford (beginning of poem), many are in the river (connected sentences
by semicolons), and others are emerging on the opposite bank (full stop at the end).
Therefore, I included this poem in this section because the punctuation reflects the tone
and theme of the piece.
Poem 5: “[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]” by E.E. Cummings
Citation: Cummings, E. E. "[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]." Poetry Foundation.
Poetry Foundation, June 1952. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.
Annotation: E. E. Cummings is well known for his eccentric punctuation style. His poem
"[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]" follows the declaration of the narrator’s love to
his lover. The narrator, who I will assume is Cummings, will always carry his lover in his
heart. He fears no fate, because his lover is his fate. It is a very romantic poem, and I feel
that the unique punctuation style impresses on the reader an aura of intimacy. The
parentheses in the poem include a qualifier for each of Cummings’s statements; for
example, he says “i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)” and “i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true).” This can have one of two effects.
First, the impression could be a romantic, whispering-in-the-ear effect. The text outside
of parentheses could be the main point, which is already romantic enough, but the text
inside the parentheses could be a secret just for the lover to know. Secondly, the effect of
the eccentric punctuation could also be a sense of urgency. Cummings has a lot to say
and doesn’t have time to say it in standard, grammatically correct, academic English.
Additionally, Cummings’s lack of traditional spacing could also hint at this urgency. I’m
not sure which effect I agree with more; perhaps it is both urgent and romantic.
PART 3: LACK OF PUNCTUATION
Poem 6: “The Totality of Facts” by Allan Peterson
Citation: Peterson, Allan. "The Totality of Facts." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation,
2012. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.
Interview citation: "A MCSWEENEY’S BOOKS Q&A WITH ALLAN PETERSON,
AUTHOR OF FRAGILE ACTS." Interview by McSweeny's Books. McSweeny's. N.p.,
2012. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.
Annotation: To be completely honest, I did not understand most of Allan Peterson’s
poem, “The Totality of Facts.” From what I can gather, Peterson sees a gull fly behind a
fencepost but he doesn’t see it come back out, and this launches him into a series of
questions about what is real and what is imagined. The reason I chose the poem was
actually based on an interview I found with Peterson on McSweeny’s. McSweeny’s asks
Peterson, “Why do you avoid most punctuation?” to which he responds, “Punctuation is a
fairly recent development in the history of writing and there are many ways of being clear
without it, or ways to be ambiguous on purpose.” Though Peterson admits that
punctuation “is sometimes a useful convention,” he thinks it can be “a bit of a tyranny
when trying to get at the ineffable.” Peterson hints at this in “The Totality of Facts” when
he says, “In the afternoon there are pauses between the words/ through which commas
can grow like daisy fleabane.” Daisy fleabane is a type of weed that looks a little like a
daisy. With this metaphor, Peterson is suggesting that writers place commas in sentences
thinking they’ll look pretty, but in reality, the commas are no better than weeds. I
completely disagree with Peterson’s view, because I feel that punctuation creates clarity,
but I thought it would be interesting to include a dissenting view in my anthology.
Poem 7: “The Crisis of Infinite Worlds” by Dana Ward
Citation: Ward, Dana. "The Crisis of Infinite Worlds." The Crisis of Infinite Worlds. New
York, NY: Futurepoem, 2013. Print.
Video Citation: The Crisis of Infinite Worlds by Dana Ward. Prod. Joey Versoza. Perf.
Dana Ward. Youtube. N.p., 12 July 2012. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.
Annotation: “The Crisis of Infinite Worlds” is a roller coaster of a poem that serves as a
ballad of sorts for Krystle Cole, a woman who allegedly tortured (or was tortured) by
men with a lot of drugs involved. The poem is a trippy expedition into the mind of Dana
Ward, and covers topics such as imaginary drugs and romantic graffiti. I included it in
this section because the poem reads very much as a stream of consciousness with little to
no punctuation separating thoughts and ideas. This made reading the rather long poem
overwhelming for me, because there were no signs of when an idea was beginning or
ending. However, listening to Dana Ward recite his poem is a much different experience.
I could understand what he was saying much more clearly through verbal communication
than I could when I was just reading his thoughts off the page. This was because Ward
was speaking his poem as if it had punctuation, even though it did not. This sparked an
internal question for me: is punctuation spoken? I personally feel that I’m cognizant of
my punctuation when I’m speaking; I’m not thinking “oh, a comma goes here,” but I am
carefully creating pauses or emphasis that punctuation would create for me on the page.
This line of thinking brought me back to Ward’s poem; when spoken, even though the
punctuation isn’t physically there, the effects of the punctuation remain.
PART 4: PUNCTUATION IN TRANSLATION
Poem 8: The Dickinson Composites by Jen Bervin
Citation: Bervin, Jen. The Dickinson Composites. 2010. Paper and fabric. Emory
University Rose Manuscript, Archives & Rare Book Library, Atlanta.
Annotation: The Dickinson Composites are a series of large-scale embroideries that
depict the eccentric punctuation style of poet Emily Dickinson. Bervin creates a visual
representation of the punctuation by presenting the thick red marks on a light cream
fabric. I chose to include the composites in my anthology because I was interested in the
stories behind them. After Dickinson’s death, her family found her hand-sewn “fascicles”
containing nearly 18,000 poems. Much of her unique punctuation style was edited out
and did not make it into the final version of her poems. The Dickinson Composites map
out the poet’s variants––the + signs that served to direct readers to other words or phrases
in the poetry. I feel this piece adds to my anthology by directly showing that in
translation, even just translation from a handwritten copy to a copy ready for print,
punctuation can be lost. This translation eliminates some of the poem’s original meaning
as well.
Poem 9: Chaucer––The Ellesmere Manuscript and the Norton Anthology
Citation for Manuscript: Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Ellesmere Chaucer. Digital image.
Huntington Digital Library. The Huntington Library, 1400-1410. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.
Citation for Anthology: Chaucer, Geoffrey, V. A. Kolve, and Glending Olson. The
Canterbury Tales: Fifteen Tales and the General Prologue: Authoritative Text, Sources
and Backgrounds, Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005. Print.
Annotation: The Ellesmere Chaucer is an early 1400s manuscript of Chaucer’s
Canterbury Tales. This manuscript contains little to no punctuation. The Norton
Anthology version of the Tales, on the other hand, is a largely punctuated version of
Chaucer’s original Middle English text. I chose to compare these two versions of
Chaucer’s widely-known work in my anthology to show another side of poetry through
translation: though sometimes things are lost, other times things are gained. In this case,
punctuation is gained, and, in my opinion, clarity is gained. Reading Chaucer is already
an arduous task; reading Chaucer without quotation marks or commas would be near
impossible for the average reader. By adding punctuation, the Norton Anthology opens
up the text to a wider audience. Punctuation, in a sense, actually makes the texts
accessible; this, in my opinion, is incredibly powerful.
Poem 10: No Fear Shakespeare: Hamlet by Spark Notes
Citation: Shakespeare, William, and John Crowther. No Fear Shakespeare: Hamlet. New
York: SparkNotes, 2003. Print.
Annotation: No Fear Shakespeare: Hamlet includes both the original play and a modern
translation of Shakespeare’s famous text. Side by side, they both tell the tragic tale of
Hamlet, one in Shakespeare’s own words and the other in colloquial modern terms. I
thought it would be interesting to compare how the punctuation changes from the
Shakespearian to the modern version. I found, for the most part, that overall punctuation
stayed the same. If something was a question in Shakespeare, it was a question in the
modern version. If it was a statement, it had a period on both sides of the page. What I
saw in the modern version was a large addition of commas and dashes. For example, “I
humbly thank you” became “Very well, thank you.” Additionally, “Why, look at you
now, how unworthy of a thing you make of me! You would play upon me. You would
know my stops…” became “Well, look how you play me––as if you knew exactly where
to put your fingers, to blow the mystery out of me, playing all the octaves of my range––
and yet…” I think this addition of commas and dashes does add clarity, but changing the
overall structure and punctuation does also change the meaning of the sentences. In that
sense, meaning is gained, but meaning is also lost.