Just a general question, in poetry do you think the start of each line (as opposed to sentence) should be capitalised?

It's a stylistic thing really but was wondering what the general opinion was here?

Personally I prefer the overall look of caps at the start of each line, but others find it distracting.
To my mind a more 'formal' style of poetry lends itself to the more traditional capitalisation, and this shouldn't detract from meaning if proper punctuation is used, whereas the a more contemporary form may not benifit from this kind of capitalisation... but even here capitalisation shouldn't be used as a replacement for punctuation...

What does everyone think?

I used to capitalize every line, but...
Personally, I like it better when a word isn't capitalized where it would normally be grammatically.
I'm not going to mark a piece off for it, though. Especially if there's proper punctuation.

I think another question about this should be about
Capitalizing words that normally wouldn't normally be.
For instance, capitalizing a word you want to bring emphasis to.

,':)

I've no problem with capitalising a word to give emphasis, but I think that it may be an easy way out sometimes, when the rhythm should give emphasis to a word but doesn't and so capitalisation is used rather than looking at rhythm more closely...

(Another thing that I often find distracting is what we would refer to as Americanised spelling, which I guess is okay if you are American! but which jars with me, mostly because I spend large portions of my working day proof reading and correcting Americanised spelling in documents written by European writers...)

Hi Irishgirl----I have written a couple of poems, which are marginally better than a liver wurst sandwich, but that doesn’t make me a bard, at least as far as I’m concerned. If a poem has a nice song, (rhythm or rhyme) and delivers a clear message, without expanding on the word count contained in Webster’s Dictionary, than I think it’s probably worth a read.

The issue I wish to discuss is the use of capitals to high light a word, or series of words. The only place in literature, where this practice is used is the lowly comic book; surely we’re not condoning the use of the comic book, to set the standard for literary excellence.

There are ample ways of high lighting text without infringing upon the territory, of the lowly comic book. We can legitimately use, brackets, of which there is quite an array, bold text, or even underlining. There is absolutely no legitimate reason for us to lower the literary standards, to that of the comic book.

I hope my comments aren’t seen as a high jacking of your thread that is not my intention.

Talk to you soon----ablelaz.

Elliot used capitalisation for emphasis in The Wasteland, and Dickinson often used this also (and to the best of my knowledge they didn't write any comic books)
However, like I said in previous post, I'm not a fan of this idea.

Hi Irishgirl---I’m not all that surprised, that Dickinson and Elliot, and for that matter, many other well established authors would practice this method of high lighting. Capitalization is after all the easiest method of high lighting available.

I challenge you to find a book that uses this method of high lighting, which was not written by a legion. Publisher would kiss a skunk’s butt, for the right to publish any author, with the reputation and earning record of ether Dickinson or Elliot. They on the other hand would be less then eager, to invest a large chuck of money, in a new author, who is so lazy, as to use capitalization as a method of high lighting.

The fact that these two world famous writers used capitalizations to high light text, doesn’t prove they are bad writers, It proves they have let their success go to their heads, they practice this lazy way of high lighting, because they know they can get away with it.

Talk to you soon---ablelaz.

It depends on how you want to use grammar in your poem. Some poems read (and are made effective by) using complete sentences broken up by lines, punctuation etc. On the other hand if you have a poem wherein each line can stand alone it's generally the case that you'll capitalise each at the beginning. That being said though it's all down to the poet and what you hope to accomplish with your work, if you think a poem, or even a piece of prose, reads better when you break the standard grammatical conventions then by all means break them. Many of the greats have done the same in the past, and if there's one thing that stifles creativity it's guidelines that the writer feels they have to abide by.

Hi Vasectormy---- My remarks were not intended to be directed toward poetry, but were aimed more toward the literary world.

It amazes me when someone uses the old cliché “The greats of yesterday often throw convention to the wind and wrote it their way.” When we delve into these boosts, we all too often find that they were great, long before they were rebels.

Show me an author or poet who thumbed their nose at convention and presented their work, without regard for excepted practice when they were starting out and I will be truly impressed.

Talk to you soon---ablelaz.

I think what ablelaz is talking about is the trap many fresh artists fall into. In order to break conventions, you first have to understand and perfect them, so that you can know when to properly break them down and by how much.

Picasso's paintings sure do look fucked up, but he had to know how to draw normally for a very long time before he could do what he's famous for.

Wanna go to the moon?