This is lovely, and I enjoyed the definition of virgula as 'the divining rod that locates water or other precious substances underground, a rod that mediates or pretends to mediate between the terrestrial and the divine'. Hearing the word 'virgule' gave me a Proust-like flashback to French dictation classes at school, and the pleasure of turning that rather leaden word (as it seemed to me then) into a simple little flick on the page.
Good to see Carey as an epigraph: I often hand out his chapter on ‘The Lesser Stops’ to students who nod politely but treat it as confirmation that I do indeed come from The Past.
There's a great deal of interest here, Jeremy - such as how far a comma is actually in service of a poem, how the critical aspect of a review might prove helpful, and a poet's way of ending (or beginning) poems that might become stylistically repetitive and how far the poet might or might not be aware of this. It's noticeable, for instance, that Sharon Olds often starts a poem with 'When'. It's something of which she must be aware... A spontaneity..?
Thank you for your comment on my book ,'The Process of Poetry', Jeremy. I think Regi's most powerful employment of the comma was her addition to the line, 'My sister died at sea, alone' emphasising her complete isolation and encouraging the reader to pause. John McCullough's more joyous use of the exclamation mark, may also be of interest your readers?
This is lovely, and I enjoyed the definition of virgula as 'the divining rod that locates water or other precious substances underground, a rod that mediates or pretends to mediate between the terrestrial and the divine'. Hearing the word 'virgule' gave me a Proust-like flashback to French dictation classes at school, and the pleasure of turning that rather leaden word (as it seemed to me then) into a simple little flick on the page.
Or there’s Adorno’s essay on punctuation-marks in ‘Notes to Literature’.
Good to see Carey as an epigraph: I often hand out his chapter on ‘The Lesser Stops’ to students who nod politely but treat it as confirmation that I do indeed come from The Past.
Thank you for your brilliant piece on Virgula! Sasja Janssen
Apropos another campaign: an old convention fighting to live again is the one of capitalising species’ names. Thus, comma—a mark, Comma—a butterfly.
Sticking to this would have saved you pain, but deprived us of a fine article. :-)
There's a great deal of interest here, Jeremy - such as how far a comma is actually in service of a poem, how the critical aspect of a review might prove helpful, and a poet's way of ending (or beginning) poems that might become stylistically repetitive and how far the poet might or might not be aware of this. It's noticeable, for instance, that Sharon Olds often starts a poem with 'When'. It's something of which she must be aware... A spontaneity..?
Lovely to read this! Thanks for your interesting comments during the event itself. And would you correct my name to Hutchison?
Nope: just ‘Punctuation Marks’. Sorry; should have said that more directly!
Thank you for your comment on my book ,'The Process of Poetry', Jeremy. I think Regi's most powerful employment of the comma was her addition to the line, 'My sister died at sea, alone' emphasising her complete isolation and encouraging the reader to pause. John McCullough's more joyous use of the exclamation mark, may also be of interest your readers?