Quick, Quick, Slow: Punctuation Tips for Poets
For writers of prose, academic, technical, or even creative writing, the idea of poetry—where there are no “rules”—can be enticing. Poetry can feel freeing because there are no hard and fast limitations. Anything can be poetry, from the tweets and posts we all see on social media to traditional forms like the sonnet or the haiku, which we have all attempted at one time or another, probably in high school, or the saucy limericks we all try to write in Irish pubs every St. Patrick’s day after one too many pints of Guinness. Poetry can feel like a breath of fresh air, particularly to those going through difficult times, and many people confess that they came to poetry as an outlet for an emotional experience that felt impossible to express in any other way. Poetry feels accessible because it can be anything. In contemporary poetry, we see all kinds of new and exciting forms—prose poetry, novels-in-verse, poetry using found text or now, lots of questions about the creative applications of AI-generated material—and much more.
It’s a popular myth that poetry is totally without rules. Much of the poetry that we consider part of the canon has pretty specific rules, actually—formal limitations like meter (a pattern of syllables and emphasis) or line length or rhyme. In more contemporary settings we do see more experimentation and what a poem is has become a much broader definition. For some, the lack of rules is more interesting than digging through the archives and trying to imitate a style that’s been around for hundreds of years; they would rather try something new. This is a great impulse, but as writers, we’re still working with language, and some aspects of the way we organize language as a society and as a species are hard to dismantle. Punctuation is one of those things. Language and writing are about communication—the communication of observations and emotions—and clarity can be a major part of that discussion, which is why punctuation is such a hot topic.
So, what is punctuation? We’re usually talking about commas and periods, but we can also consider em dashes, colons and semicolons, and even fun stuff like parentheses, brackets, and of course, question and exclamation marks. Punctuation is a way to indicate to readers how to move through your poems—it shows readers how to stop, start, and slow down, as well as where to place emphasis. Some writers swear by it while others eschew it altogether, and it becomes a question of aesthetics, reader experience, formatting, intentional, rhythm and much more. At its core, the question is about intentionality—how much can you control the way your reader moves through your poem, how much time they spend with certain images, what they notice, and how you can make them focus. All of this is inextricably tied to how your poem is built, and it’s just as important as the language you use, if not more.
As a reader of submissions, I often find punctuation is a question that I come across. Many emerging poets are resistant to punctuation. In some cases this can be a good thing as it can begin to push writers into spaces where they must be more creative. Some writers come up with exciting and new ways to show readers where to stop and start. But for the majority of writers the lack or inconsistency of punctuation can actually make a poem more difficult to read and review.
Punctuation, at its core, is a tool meant to indicate to readers how to read your writing. It helps us as readers to know where to focus. Without punctuation we don’t know how to move through your poems. We can get lost or lose our way. We won’t be able to fully engage with your language, and this can become a problem as we try to evaluate your poem.
When reviewing a poem which has no punctuation at all, as an editor it’s often helpful to suggest to the submitter that they read their submission aloud, which will help them to see places where they might want to place those crucial periods and commas. Although there are plenty of contemporary works of both prose and poetry which don’t engage with punctuation or limit its use (James Hannnaham’s novel Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta – Wikipedia or much of the poetry of Eileen Myles who uses a spare and minimalist style with very little punctuation (Eileen Myles | Poetry Foundation) most contemporary punctuation uses some kind of organizing punctuation to give its wordplay an overarching structure.
Even super contemporary examples like imogen xtian smith’s stemmy things, from Nightboat Books (2022) (stemmy things – Nightboat Books), which stylizes its title so that it doesn’t even use punctuation, brings in punctuation in different ways as the forms of the different poems switch in and out. A poet like smith uses many different kinds of techniques, more than would be available in the average submission packet—but an awareness of punctuation and the intentional use or denial feels controlled. Emerging writers should be aware of everything they are putting on the page, from the first word to the final period, which will signal to editors their readiness to publish.
Reading your poems aloud is an excellent habit to be in, in general—it will help to build your sonic abilities, and make you more conscious about how your lines are landing. It will also help you build confidence for when you are doing readings of your own work. The more prepared for reading in front of people, the more natural this will feel for you—and these can be wonderful experiences, community-building from the ground level up.
Once you’ve mastered the period and the comma, it’s time to try out some new skills. The em dash and the parenthetical—Emily Dickinson (Emily Dickinson | Poetry Foundation) and EE Cummings (E. E. Cummings | Poetry Foundation) are the famous historical figures most well known for these particular tools. Both of these writers are surprisingly before their times, innovative and exciting and well-worth reading if you’re looking for some key poetic lineage. Then check out Tommy Pico (here’s an excerpt from his most recent book: From “Feed” by Tommy Pico | Poetry Magazine) who uses all kinds of forms and very minimal punctuation in his trio of book-length poems (Feed (2019), Junk (2018), and Nature Poem (2017), all from Tin House) all of which are worth checking out.
Punctuation shouldn’t be scary, and it shouldn’t be something to fear. Poets can get swept up in trying to break rules or avoid the stuffy material we all encountered in high school English, but punctuation is there to help you, not hurt you. It’s a big world out there and there’s more than one way to write a poem. You have the tools at your disposal. The choice is yours.
Further Reading:
“[It is abominable, unquenchable by touch]” by Diane Seuss (poem in one single line)
“Trigger,” by Chase Berggrun (no punctuation)
Prompt: write a prose poem using the longest grammatically correct sentence you can—using commas, dashes, colons, parentheses, and whatever else you can come up with! Bonus points if you can write a poem with line breaks. No cheating! Santa will know.