Usage of commas in poetry
I wrote a piece of poetry for one of my short stories (the main character, Eri, writes poems). It's the following:
Eri, did you feel the earthquake last night?
Are you really sure your apartment's alright?
In which planet where you wandering when it came?
Is reality and the world as you know still the same?
I have my doubts as to whether to put a comma after Eri. Seems to stop the whole flow. Or maybe that kind of punctuation is invisible in poetry?
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It's not uncommon to do away with punctuation completely in poetry. However, in this case you aren't doing that -- you are using question marks. So yes, you need the comma.
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Another thought on this question: by quoting your own character's poetry, you're also making a comment on her poetry. Is she a "good" poet? Is her style sentimental, form-bound, what kinds of metaphors does she tend to choose (urban life, the natural world, outer space, etc.), does she tend to push the envelope or is she pretty conventional?
If you think she's a poet whose poetry doesn't "flow" well, then you want to make sure her poetry does not flow, even if your own poetry would flow nicely.
In other words, you might want to break some of your own rules about poetry, in order to be true to her poetry and character. You don't necessarily have to write "good" poetry for your character, if she herself is not a "good" poet.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/9032. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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You need the comma because you are addressing the person. "Did you feel the earthquake last night?" is a complete sentence. Adding "Eri" is a kind of one-word clause. You need the comma to separate the clauses.
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