Mather, a Facebook poet friend wrote this:
A dash indicates a sudden, unexpected shift in perspective, a “lightning bolt” of awareness, not as gradual as a comma and not as normative as a period. The dash, previously known as two hyphens, is now raising havoc on the whole “idea” of what “poetry means.” The dash, while also slashing our “way of seeing things” to bits, has the additional advantage of confusing the reader into a fresh way of understanding the world, existence, and the very substance of being.
He was reacting to the following Scarriet poem on Facebook. He seemed to feel it went a little overboard with dashes. What do you think?
IF YOU HAVE NO FAITH I CAN DEPICT
If you have no faith I can depict
how delicately the sensitive turns to sin—
or make a world with verse and fit the pieces in—
and get the shadows right—
by going beyond black and white,
even getting the color of your lover’s skin
exactly right,
then do not read me, or talk to me again.
Live with things. Converse with actual men.
You’ll not finally understand what any of it meant.
Your head is thick. No thought can make a dent.
Thought is for the memory and problems solved in haste.
My poetry—and the world, as well—is to you a wide waste;
I am sensitive and need to think, apart,
and in solitude understand the tides and errors of my entangled heart.
Only through duplication—my poem filtering your eyes—
the 18th century the same as the 21st century lies
(an opium prostitute reading Sade asking when will modernism start)
can I hope to know and not be murdered by surprise.
I need to keep things at arm’s length even as things
murder me. Silent—before this strange dog sings.
~~
And here’s how I—in classic Scarriet form—responded:
No, a “dash” does not indicate “a sudden, unexpected shift in perspective, a “lightning bolt” of awareness…” What follows the dash adds information specifically to the meaning-unit immediately preceding the dash. That’s about it.
And I elaborated further, as another Facebook member, Peter—whom I respect—joined the conversation:
Peter: Thomas, a dash has many uses. If the intended effect is conveyed, it’s successful.
Thomas: Edgar Poe wrote a piece in praise of the dash. I should look for it, but the essence of what he said, if memory serves, is what I said.
Peter: Didn’t he use dashes to cut off sentences sometimes, for effect?
Thomas: He loved italics for emphasis. He came up with his own scanning marks because it saved ink. As for the dash, Poe always used it as a mark for follow-up, additional information. “Hear the loud alarum bells—Brazen bells!” What kind of bells are we listening to, exactly? Brazen bells. More information. “Of the bells, bells, bells!—Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells—To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!” It’s an “onward” sign, the dash. I can see how one might think the dash is used here to “cut off sentences,” but Poe was always aware of mathematical precision in terms of time, of ease which saves time, and so by using the dash in “The Bells” he is marking the continuation of the repetition so the eye doesn’t get lost in too many “bells.” It’s not so much emphasis as it is a marking device which lets the reader know, “this next sequence is adding to what went before—the excess, the onwardness, the simple, linear accumulation is—intended.
Now, in this Scarriet piece, I might as well quote Poe on the dash. I found it online and it doesn’t disappoint:
THAT punctuation is important all agree; but how few comprehend the extent of its importance! The writer who neglects punctuation, or mis-punctuates, is liable to be misunderstood — this, according to the popular idea, is the sum of the evils arising from heedlessness or ignorance. It does not seem to be known that, even where the sense is perfectly clear, a sentence may be deprived of half its force — its spirit — its point — by improper punctuation. For the want of merely a comma, it often occurs that an axiom appears a paradox, or that a sarcasm is converted into a sermonoid.
There is no treatise on the topic — and there is no topic on which a treatise is more needed. There seems to exist a vulgar notion that the subject is one of pure conventionality, and cannot be brought within the limits of intelligible and consistent rule. And yet, if fairly looked in the face, the whole matter is so plain that its rationale may be read as we run. If not anticipated, I shall, hereafter, make an attempt at a magazine paper on ‘The Philosophy of Point.’
In the meantime let me say a word or two of the dash. Every writer for the press, who has any sense of the accurate, must have been frequently mortified and vexed at the distortion of his sentences by the printer’s now general substitution of a semi-colon, or comma, for the dash of the MS. The total or nearly total disuse of the latter point, has been brought about by the revulsion consequent upon its excessive employment about twenty years ago.
The Byronic poets were all dash. John Neal, in his earlier novels, exaggerated its use into the grossest abuse — although his very error arose from the philosophical and self-dependent spirit which has always distinguished him, and which will even yet lead him, if I am not greatly mistaken in the man, to do something for the literature of the country which the country ‘will not willingly,’ and cannot possibly, ‘let die.’
Without entering now into the why, let me observe that the printer may always ascertain when the dash of the MS. is properly and when improperly employed, by bearing in mind that this point represents a second thought — an emendation. In using it just above I have exemplified its use. The words ‘an emendation’ are, speaking with reference to grammatical construction, put in apposition with the words ‘a second thought.’ Having written these latter words, I reflected whether it would not be possible to render their meaning more distinct by certain other words.
Now, instead of erasing the phrase ‘a second thought,’ which is of some use — which partially conveys the idea intended — which advances me a step toward my full purpose — I suffer it to remain, and merely put a dash between it and the phrase ‘an emendation.’ The dash gives the reader a choice between two, or among three or more expressions, one of which may be more forcible than another, but all of which help out the idea. It stands, in general, for these words — ‘or, to make my meaning more distinct.’ This force it has — and this force no other point can have; since all other points have well-understood uses quite different from this. Therefore, the dash cannot be dispensed with.
–Edgar Poe, Graham’s Magazine, 1848
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Scarriet Editors
Salem, MA
9/6/2022