Beautiful Words
I love teaching writing almost as I love the words I write with. Yes, I truly love words as they are little, or big, signals of intention and meaning. They are the one thing that has lifted us to the top of the food chain. Those who can use them best on the page or from the pulpit are promoted to the top of the top.
Also, I love the way they are arranged and lie on the page for my tasting and frolic among them, and admire the proper way to know how to use those little marks between them—they are fun too. Read “Eats, shoots and leaves,” or read with the comma resituated—“Eats shoots and leaves.” It is the title of a book on punctuations by Lynn Truss. Get it, it is fun and you will learn a lot.
Here is a fun little poem I stole from Writer’s digest:
“On Punctuation”
By Elizabeth Austern
Not for me the dogma of the period
preaching order and a sure conclusion
And no not for me the prissy
formality or tight-lipped fence
of the colon and as for the semi-
colon call it what it is
a period slumming
with the commas
a poser at the bar
feigning liberation with one hand
tightening the leash with the other
oh give me the headlong run-on
fragment dangling its feet
over the edge give me the sly
comma with its come-hither
wave teasing all the characters
on either side give me ellipses
not just a gang of periods
a trail of possibilities
or give me the sweet interrupting dash
the running, leaping joining dash all the voices
gleeing out over one another
oh if I must
punctuate
give me the YIPPEE
of the exclamation point
five me the curling
cupping curve mounting the period
with voluptuous uncertainty.
“On punctuation” by Elizabeth Austern,
From :the Girl Who Goes Alone. © Floating
Bridge Press, 2010.

“On punctuation” by Elizabeth Austern,
From :the Girl Who Goes Alone. © Floating
Bridge Press, 2010.