The choice of person in a poem is important, although it’s often something that happens without conscious thought. A poet starts to write in first, second or third person automatically, and has to find good justification to make any changes. This was one area that gave Lance Greenfield a problem. He wanted to begin with the single mature butterfly, but the concept of just one egg rather than a group seemed wrong. The introduction of many friends in the penultimate stanza bridged the change from first person singular to first person plural approach.
Another concern was punctuation, and the poet admitted a slight struggle with this. In part, the issue is resolved by the poem’s grammar. If you write in grammatical sentences, there’s an automatic placing of a full stop at the sentence’s end, rounding off the word group that contains, in almost every case, both subject and main verb. The rare exception is where a very brief comment or exclamation is given sentence status to make it stand out, such as Deep sleep. at the end of the third stanza.
Lisez l'article complet et bien d'autres dans ce numéro de
Writing Magazine
Options d'achat ci-dessous
Si le problème vous appartient,
Connexion pour lire l'article complet maintenant.
Numéro unique numérique
July 2019
 
Ce numéro et d'autres anciens numéros ne sont pas inclus dans une nouvelle version de l'article
abonnement. Les abonnements comprennent le dernier numéro régulier et les nouveaux numéros publiés pendant votre abonnement. Writing Magazine
Abonnement numérique annuel
€58,99
facturé annuellement
Abonnement numérique mensuel
€5,99
facturé mensuellement
Abonnement numérique mensuel
€6,99
facturé mensuellement