on punctuation

I love words, how words are arranged and lay on the page for my tasting and frolic among them. I am reading "Rose" by Martin Cruz Smith, who is a wordsmith as good as Tolkein or Peter S Beagle, and that is going some. Those little marks between the words are fun too. Read "Eats, shoots and Leaves," or put another way, Eats shoots, and leaves."

Here's a fun little poem I stole from The Writer's Digest, and am sharing with you.

On Punctuation

by Elizabeth Austen

not for me the dogma of the period

preaching order and a sure conclusion

and no not for me the prissy

formality or tight-lipped fence

of the colon and as for the semi-

colon call it what it is

a period slumming

with the commas

a poser at the bar

feigning liberation with one hand

tightening the leash with the other

oh give me the headlong run-on

fragment dangling its feet

over the edge give me the sly

comma with its come-hither

wave teasing all the characters

on either side give me ellipses

not just a gang of periods

a trail of possibilities

or give me the sweet interrupting dash

the running leaping joining dash all the voices

gleeing out over one another

oh if I must

punctuate

give me the YIPPEE

of the exclamation point

give me give me the curling

cupping curve mounting the period

with voluptuous uncertainty

"On Punctuation" by Elizabeth Austen, from The Girl Who Goes Alone. © Floating Bridge Press, 2010. Reprinted with permission.