Comma Cops

Both writers and editors have their share of opinions about when, where, and how to use punctuation marks. Publishers, too, have their style guides, which usually include policies concerning how to use punctuation in your manuscript.

Some schools of thought put forward that writers should always properly follow punctuation rules (as well as good grammar), even when writing poetry, while other schools insist that punctuation can be used as experimentally as one wants, especially in poetry.

"Les Artistes d'Avant Garde - Mime's Hand Sign" Stock Photo from WIX

Imagine having to edit reams of poetry pages from vastly different poets, who each have a dizzying assortment of beliefs about style, form, and punctuation. How would you go about doing so without approaching each poem in a haphazard manner?

Editors of poetry magazines and anthologies are expected to do that; their contributors submit, if not completely unique works, radically varied and treated poems that editors are then anticipated to cobble together in some cohesive and sensible fashion. Each editor, in tandem with specifications from a publisher, develops a guide from which to create some network of consistency between unlike pieces of writing.

While publishing The Centrifugal Eye poetry journal, I recognized that the variety in treatment of punctuation was such an important aspect to poets in practice today that I could hardly justify insisting that every poem I published be formatted with complete punctuation (of which, generally, I am a proponent). It would mean I would have to reject too many damn good poems, or try to force too many damn good poets to comply with a rigid style-guide. Rather than choose a single style, and therefore set a huge limitation to variety, I implemented a style policy in which consistency within a body of work won out.

“Either use proper punctuation, or none at all,” became a bit of a mantra that TCE’s staff editors and I often ended up coaching during revision sessions with our contributors. That didn’t mean there was no in-between juxtaposing of punctuation marks by poets — some of them had rather elaborate systems for using capital letters or not, or used the sly, occasional comma now and then but never a period, for example. For these poets, we asked only that they apply their methodology in a consistent manner throughout a poem. Make some sense, no matter how subtle, behind the exploratory.

Why?

Why not just haphazard as you please? Why not complete “poetic license?”

Punctuation doesn’t just exist to annoy you, dear writers. It’s not there to get in the way, unless it’s been inserted by someone who doesn’t really understand the purposes behind each mark. Think about it from the reader’s point of view: If you understand what each punctuation mark means, you can almost always drive along through the text more easily, and safely, than the reader who mixes up the signals.

Yes, punctuation is a series of signals. Traffic signals, really. So, you, as writers, are traffic cops, who signal to your readers how fast or slow to go, where to turn in thought, and when to stop and ponder. With your signals, you guide your audience not only through your work, but also aid its comprehension and potential immersion.

I love that analogy. Traffic Cop, Comma Cop. (No, not Grammar Nazi. That’s really a mean tag to put on writers and editors who are trying to get it right. Nazis were cruel and villainous.)

Punctuation is a language unto itself. Isn’t it? If you want to think of it as a hand-sign language, that’s another way to appreciate the usefulness of meaningful symbolism.

Okay, so why don’t I try to talk writers out of “stylistic punctuation,” or complete lack of punctuation?

My answer is that it’s because I want to respect the writer-at-play, the explorer-adventurer, even the rebellious (to a point) artiste d’avant-garde. It’s fruitful to stay polite and discuss the development of a system of consistent punctuation that can be put into place, whether loose or unusual, because readers can still be guided more successfully that way than they can with contextual chaos reigning (for this is what random or total lack of punctuation has often been known to unleash.)

Early in my career as TCE’s editor/publisher, I had the fortune to work with poet Joy Harold Helsing a few times. Joy told me she had at one time worked as an editor for Houghton Mifflin, a publisher I had always admired. In our conversations, we talked through several aspects of publishing, as well as the style guides used by different major publishing houses. I enjoyed every bit of our discussions.

For me, the #1 piece of impacting advice that Joy passed along from her experience was the need for consistency within a publication, within a piece of work, within a system of style.

No matter how unconventionally you may decide to punctuate, at least be consistent in your applications.

(So, I bet you’re wondering — do I prefer serial commas? Yes. They mean something. They guide readers to understand inclusion and exclusion, and they can sort out some rather silly misunderstandings.)

Now, go forth and punctuate! Or not.

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