When it comes to dialogue in poetry, what the battle really boils down to is whether lines should be embraced by quotation marks or distinguished in italics. There are certainly pros and cons to each. But in the end, is it just personal preference?
I fight for italics. The number of times I have supported quotation marks over italics can be count on one hand. To put it simply: I just don’t like quotation marks. They’re ugly. They stand out. They pull the reader out of the poem. The small flecks on the page mess up the alignment and positioning of words on a page.
But maybe that’s just me. I mean, it sounds a little obsessive, doesn’t it? There aren’t any valid reasons to shun the punctuation mark from poetry, except for the subjective opinion that it might distract the reader for a moment.
Do they do more good than bad, if we move past quotation marks not looking pretty on the page? It makes a clear distinction that what you’re reading is dialogue. You can use italics elsewhere in the poem to add emphasis in stressed areas without having to worry if it conflicts with italicized dialogue, or if italicized dialogue looks like it might be a thought instead of a spoken line.
All reasonable concerns. I have also supported quotations when the poem is bi- or multilingual, as other languages tend to be italicized.
But if anyone tried to put a quotation mark in one of my poems, it would happen only over my dead body. Even if I don’t fully understand why, quotation marks in poetry just rub me the wrong way.
For example, Rebecca Morgan Frank wrote this quirky poem called “Dialectic” (from Little Murders Everywhere) that spins off of language, contrasting the juxtaposed concreteness and abstractness of words. In it, the two subjects speak the words aloud to feel them out.
Now, which method do you think she used: quotation marks or italics? Which do you like better? Is it a personal preference or is there a reason you chose the one you did?
Or are you just wondering why the hell someone wrote a 440-word post on the positives and negatives of using quotation marks in poetry when it looks fine either way and do these kinds of things seriously keep me up at night? (My answer, by the way: more often than you’d think.)
This is one of the punctuation debates that I will never solve. To me, the italics (which Frank actually did use in her poem) will just always look better. And while it may be shallow, it’s enough reason for me.
Poetry & Hums 