Question

Read the following stanza from “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Then discuss how the punctuation influences the flow and meaning of the poem. Based on what you see in this stanza, briefly describe how you’ll punctuate your lyric poem.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

Answer 1

the commas at the end of the first two lines and the fourth line link closely related ideas by indicating a very brief pause.

The comma at the end of the line "We have come over a way that with tears has been watered," signals that the next line is connected to the same idea, although the words form an independent clause.

The semicolon at the end of the third line separates two distinct ideas—the harshness of the past journey and the travelers' arrival at their destination.

The question mark at the end of the line "Come to the place for which our fathers sighed" indicates a rhetorical question, which doesn’t need to be answered. In this case, the question is more of an acknowledgment of past struggles. The speakers have figuratively traveled a long distance to arrive where their forefathers longed to reach.

In my poem, I plan to use a variety of punctuation. I’ll place different punctuation marks in different places and see how they make me feel. The punctuation will help my readers interpret how the lines connect or contrast. Depending on how my ideas are fitting into the lines, I'd like to include some enjambment, which is no punctuation at the end of a line. I might follow that with a punctuation mark in the middle of the next line.