13 Punctuated Lines
1. THIS is why I bring my camera everywhere I go.
2. I fell asleep with my glasses on. Maybe I’ll be able to read my dreams better.
3. Chat or Chatter?
4. Duo or Duel?
5. Heard at The Little River Poetry Festival: Judith: I’m married to a man who makes up words. Jack: Yeah, but I spell them right.
6. My friend Mara wants to take our poetry routine on the road. Because we know each other so well and have been bouncing off each other’s work for 30 years, our featured reading at the Little River Poetry Festival came off a bit as a comedy act. Back in the day (2005 – 2012) when we were part of the Floyd Writers Circle and co-hosted a monthly Spoken Word night at the Café Del Sol, we didn’t realize we were creating a body of work about and for each other. – More from We’re Back! @ The Little River Poetry Festival HERE.
7. Mara and I were dueling poets At the Little River Poetry Festival. After we read some poems we had written for each other and poems on our different takes on the same themes, we read poems on our longtime, ongoing debate: whether to punctuate poetry or not.
8. This is my poem Half -starved Poems about the overuse of punctuation in poetry.
9. And this (above) is Mara’s rebuttal.
10. We also did a workshop inviting poets to riff off each other’s work.
11. That’s “riff off”, not “rip off.”
12. One of the poets (C.j. X. Pression) riffed this: The exclamation point is bouncing / like a spring / “Put me in coach! Put me in!” / The period rolls around, marble like / unsure of where it fits in… She closed with… Through all this chaos / the words are painting my canvas / in bold capitals like / triumphant scrabble scores / unconcerned / Points are not awarded for punctuation / even a question mark.
13. Poetry is older than the alphabet / Before commas there was only the breath / to let out or hold back / and not until the Middle Ages / were spaces used between words / introducing the beginning of silent reading – Read Please Don’t Punctuate This (one of the poems I read at the LRPF) in its entirety HERE.
________________Thirteen Thursday
June 12th, 2019 11:56 am
I’m partial to line breaks in poems instead of punctuation, although sometimes one does need a period.
June 13th, 2019 9:06 am
so cool you and Mara my grandaughter’s name also
June 13th, 2019 12:05 pm
You look like you’re having such a good time at your poetry reading. Thanks for sharing.
June 13th, 2019 1:20 pm
Punctuation? Line Breaks! (Both, please)
I gotta get back on the T13 train; next week, probably…