We at Scarriet have never really liked poetry that does not use punctuation, or uses a great deal of white space.
Written speech is not a magic island or a fancy island in a white sea; it is just an island: what the words and punctuation say is what the poem says.
We have always found Charles Olson and Ezra Pound dubious, if not offensively stupid, in their efforts to overturn the “old poetry” with “new” notions of gnosis and transformative knowledge, in which body and breath liberate us from time and space, escaping old dualisms and old habits, blah blah blah. No one defending this silly stuff has ever proved any of it, even for a second. It exists only in the minds of the gulled. Early 20th century manifesto-ism nearly killed poetry, yet scholars still speak in hushed, reverent terms of: H.D., Imagiste.
We are confident that nothing we say on this subject will change anyone’s mind—in fact it may convert a few against us. Psychology is the great anti-science amassed against the reasonable: it laughs at reason’s reasons.
Ross Gay has a line which skips punctuation, but we are sure what we have said will not prejudice anyone against it.
If we argue for punctuation in all instances, we may still like the following, anyway:
One never knows does one how one comes to be.
We hear does one? as a stage aside. The lack of punctuation gives the line a dramatic turn. The mystery involves punctuation; the limb works when it is gone. It is like what Mozart said about music living between the notes. But of course you still need the notes, Herr Mozart.
Some of us believe punctuation belongs to speech, but not thought—do all of us think without punctuation? Alright go downstairs now it is probably warm out now don’t forget your jacket.
Or perhaps very intelligent people think with punctuation added. Who knows?
If there is one notion pondered more than any other by intelligent people, it might be this one: One never knows, does one, how one comes to be.
And perhaps this is another thing which makes Ross Gay’s line interesting:
Because it has no punctuation, it resembles a line “inside our heads,” a thought.
But the use of “does one,” makes it sound like the poet is talking to someone.
If one were writing it more as a “pure thought,” one might write it this way: How did I come to be?
Donna Masini, the poet matched up with 5th seeded Gay in this West Bracket contest, has a line which sounds a similar note of reckless resignation: a tragic resignation, and yet with a shrug, or even a smile.
Gay and Masini might be reflecting the fact that stoicism and resignation have replaced Romantic yearning since Edna Millay went out of style among highbrows as Modernism took over the academy in the 30s and 40s. Recall how Millay, pondering death, was “not resigned?” Poets today are more likely to say, Oh gee, fuck it, I’m trapped, gotta die.
Masini: Even sex is no exit. Ah, you exist.
Masini could be addressing this line to Millay, herself, who, it was rumored, carried on a bit in the sexual department.
Dear Edna. Even sex is no exit (from the predicament of mortality).
But then we have the wonderful, “Ah, you exist.” Which is just wonderful, and we are not sure exactly why it so wonderful, but we suspect it has a little to do with the fact that “exit” and “exist” are alike in sound, and the sound of the word “sex” hides in “exit” and “exist,” too.
Masini’s line uses punctuation, which recommends it.
For even if the poet is thinking this to themselves, they could think, “Even sex is no exit.” And then walk for half an hour, and then think, “Ah, you exist.” We like that.
Not so if it looked like this: Even sex is no exit ah you exist.
Just so you know: we like Masini’s chances.
But Gay has a good chance in poetry march madness you never know do you.
