I think that the lack of punctuation is just one of the writer's
decisions about this poem. 
I love the way it runs on and 
on I love the 
enjambment
of each
line
 
To say that we might add punctuation is like saying  'If only these
blues in Picasso's blue period weren't quite so blue...."
 
Language is art (among other things)
 
Linda
 
 

-----------------------------------------------------

Linda Di Desidero, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Assistant Academic Director of Writing

Communication, Arts, and Humanities

University of Maryland University College 

3501 University Boulevard East

Adelphi, MD  20783-8083

 

(240) 582-2830

(240) 582-2993 (fax)

 

________________________________

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Edgar Schuster
Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2008 4:32 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: punctuation anyone?


Folks,
     A friend just sent me the following poem by W. S. Merwin:

     Before A Departure in Spring
Once more it is April with the first light sifting
      through the young leaves heavy with dew making the colors
remember who they are the new pink of the cinnamon tree
      the gilded lichens of the bamboo the shadowed bronze
of the kamani and the blue day opening
      as the sunlight descends through it all like the return
of a spirit touching without touch and unable
      to believe it is here and here again and awake
reaching out in silence into the cool breath
      of the garden just risen from darkness and days of rain
it is only a moment the birds fly through it calling
      to each other and are gone with their few notes and the flash
of their flight that had vanished before we ever knew it
      we watch without touching any of it and we
can tell ourselves only that this is April this is the morning
      this never happened before and we both remember it

I love it myself, and had no trouble reading it in spite of its total
absence of punctuation.  Thought I'd share it with fellow grammarians
and punctuation lovers.
Just one question:  Would the addition of punctuation improve it or
spoil it?

Ed Schuster


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