h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Whim - A23150143
Author: GrumpyAlembic - U7670313

Kimmeridge

Sorry, I should have said Kimmeridge, Dorset UK part of the World Heritage Jurrasic coast.

Another lovely poem. Poems are obviously like buses. I complained that we didn't get many decent poems on the AWW, then several turned up!

A couple of crits: I'd like to see a full stop after 'sea' in the first stanza and after 'ridge' in the last stanza. And I'm not sure about 'flatten' in stanza 2. But I'm nit-picking.

Thanks, punctuation can be a problem in some poems as it imposes a structure which might turn a reader away from their own take on the poem. I agree these are natural places to put full stops, but I quite like the reader to decide for themselves.

Flatten, well yes, it may not be the most attractive of words, but it does describe the effect of twilight on the the sea-perhaps therre is a better word!

Wow. That's quite impressive.
Personally, I don't mind the "flatten." The punctuation does bother me, though. I prefer poems to be fully punctuated, but if you don't want to do that, I think you should be consistent with it. Either you should add in those punctuations that mvp was talking about, or you should take out the others.
Thanks for this.

end of stanza = full stop

i suppose i could go the cummings route and remove all punctuationa and capital letters

I enjoyed that, too. It really brought back some sea twilights. The sea flattening - I've thought that. Can't think why it would, perhaps it's just that we notice it so much more when it does.

If I had a nitpick it would that I haven't found a way to read the last three lines without a slight disjointedness.

'Flatten' struck me as unusual in context, but I liked the flat word creating a strong image, it's interesting.

On to punctuate or not to punctuate - there's no rule anymore, is there? It's a bit bewildering. Some places are adamantly for, some against.

It's got to be what fits the poem, though. Sometimes you need it, sometimes it's a bar. One thing that now breaks the read for me but never used to, is capitals at line starts that aren't new sentences. But I would have to get tuned in to reading poems with no capitals at all.

So much is just what you're accustomed to, and the habit of looking for grammar, or certain responses being triggered by it, or by new lines, or format styles is hard to break.

I think it depend very much on the poem and the author's intent.

I tend to write short tight poems which, I hope, allow the reader to bring themselves into the poem. I use Caps at the start of each line just because I have chosen to break the line at that point. The breaks themselves are a form of punctuation which forces the reader into engaging with the words and the form. Also by leaving out most punctuation the poem becomes more open to alternate meanings - 'Impatient' in the last stanza is such a word - author or moon?

If the reader has to think and read again it should produce a deeper engagement. Granted some readers will be put off, but as you say - its what you are used to and what you like.

Thank you all for your comments, they are much appreciated.

Don't worry, all the Cool Kids capitalize at the beginning of every line

I've been thinking about the word 'flatten' - peoples' response to a word will be coloured by the emotional context of previous experience.

'flatten' could have little emotional charge - as in flattening a lump in a rug
or it could be strongly negative, if it has been used to describe the process of dealing with an adversary say.

Either way the poet would find it hard to cover all eventualities.

However, any word which causes a reader to think in more depth about their reaction to the work is good.