A lesson in Interpretation

Ah, the eternal problem of free verse writers who do not punctuate.

I personally find that when reading a poem which really interests me I do not necessarily slow down just because there is a comma or a period. Punctuation is commonly used to clarify words, grouping those which belong together, so that the reader has an easier time following the thoughts of the writer.

Punctuation helps long, complicated lines, we all agree.

Most of my lines are single thoughts which are almost always related to each other from line to line. However, the relationship they have is always open to discussion. This will be clearer a bit later. The starting and stopping process, frequently imposed by punctuation, while reading, is a very personal thing - many readers, even poets, are not in tune with the rhythm of words, and need the punctuation to guide them. I always advocate taking the time to read poety, especially mine, aloud. But when reading a new work, even after a cursory read, to me it is obvious which lines belong together, where there COULD be a comma to better separate ideas. Maybe as a writer I count on too much intelligence from my average reader, but that's how I write, for the time being.

Take, for example, the opening stanza of "the mumbling room" where I have deliberately refused any end-of-line punctuation, except the question mark at the end of the stanza. The two commas which exist replace the word "and." The original text reads as follows:

soft apologies
no one will hear
tender declarations of love
no one special
thoughts spoken out loud
fears, desires
no one to surprise
conversations with fantasy
whispering at destiny
evocations, incantations
even a prayer
who else will hear?

This particular poem goes on to describe the mumbling room, a place where we may all speak any of our thoughts without fear. The poem itself is series of thoughts, which is fairly apparent in the original text. Has the average reader asked himself why the first line has only two words and the second four, and why the author has chosen not to unite them in a single line? Poetry forces us to reconsider the relationships between words.

Traditional punctuation (used sparingly) gives the following:
Traditional punctuation, used sparingly, gives the following:

soft apologies
no one will hear,
tender declarations of love
no one special,
thoughts spoken out loud
fears, desires
no one to surprise,
conversations with fantasy,
whispering at destiny,
evocations, incantations
even a prayer
who else will hear?

Here we are deprived of two lines running together to give us "no one will hear tender declarations of love," should that be the way the reader chooses to interpret my words. Imagine the first comma after "soft apologies" and not after "no one will hear"… Changes everything right from the start.

The same idea could be expressed through the following, which many writers will come up with, but in my opinion the phrases have lost much of their individual importance :

soft apologies - no one will hear
tender declarations of love --no one special
thoughts spoken out loud, fears, desires
no one to surprise...
conversations with fantasy,
whispering at destiny,
evocations, incantations, even a prayer
who else will hear?

Let's continue the game. This next version gives it a lighter texture with the indentations and parenthesis, but does it have the same weight as the other examples?

soft apologies
no one will hear,
tender declarations of love
no one special,
thoughts spoken out loud
         (fears, desires)
no one to surprise,
conversations with fantasy,
         (whispering at destiny)
evocations, incantations
(even a prayer)
who else will hear?

And yet the following is rounder but I still don't like its form :

soft apologies - no one will hear,
tender declarations of love - no one special,
thoughts spoken out loud
(fears, desires)
no one to surprise…
conversations with fantasy,
(whispering at destiny)
evocations, incantations
(even a prayer)
who else will hear?

Last, (I'm exhausted!), but not least, the prose version :

soft apologies, no one will hear; tender declarations of love, no one special;
thoughts spoken out loud -- fears, desires -- no one to surprise;
conversations with fantasy, whispering at destiny,
evocations, incantations, even a prayer --
who else will hear?

There are obviously other variations of the presentation of the same words. I invite you to play with these same words, and try to understand what the difference in their presentation means to you personally. You will discover that what you want to say with the words depends on how they are organized on the page.

All of the above examples contain the same words. The way they appear on the page changes everything.
         The way they appear
          (on the page)
         changes
         everything.
Already nine words mean something A BIT different, because I've put the idea of WHERE the words are in parenthesis, and I have chosen to give a special emphasis to the word "everything," forcing the reader to stop before discovering that the result of "changes" is not "the way we interpret them."

But isn't poetry all about these small differences? In my book, this is essential. Otherwise, we write fiction, essays, letters or even prose.

By separating my ideas into individual lines, I give each line the potential to have the same importance as its neighboring ones. I choose not to point the reader in a pre-determined direction, leaving him the choice to read INTO my words what his heart finds in them.

The preceding is my justification for writing the way I do. If you still don't see a way to my path, please do not comment.

No hard feelings. Both camps must learn to respect each other, but we of the free-verse-without-punctuation camp do most of the bending, always having to justify our creative choices.



A lesson in Interpretation
alfred booth, the troubadour
11 june, 2006