9.38am the first day of October, 2018
I was recently perusing an article on the pitfalls that people fall in when making websites (in HTML Hell, we use the blink tag…) and I was surprised to come across a minor point the article raised: content hell includes “people who spew bad poetry and/or make a fetish of writing in all-smalls…” which made me feel routinely insecure, of course, about my own work. Granted, the author was writing in 2002. The conclusion they drew was that what matters ultimately is content, which resonated with me as well. After all, there’s a lot of trash online that’s beautified and dressed up.
As to the question of why I felt insecure: I believe no one can call them self a good poet — it is a title conferred, to borrow from the same author (hacker is a title given by another experienced hacker, not by yourself. To be confident in your voice is a privilege reserved for those either already famous or merely delusional (think Dunning-Kruger effect)
Further, I do write most of my poetry in all smalls, if you’ve read some of it. So in typical defensive response (I do not consider myself a writer of bad poetry, neither do I consider myself an “art kid” in the pejorative sense…), I write an essay elucidating this choice — and from henceforth I will adopt the author’s terminology and refer to this phenomenon as ‘all smalls’. Now I qualify, I don’t mean all smalls as in no capital locks at all, but mostly smalls with a choice of when to capitalise certain characters.
I began texting and writing poetry in (mostly) smalls probably late last year, as part of a wave of friends who did the same. It just seemed cleaner, sweeter, and read better.
I wouldn’t say there was a clear explanation or rationalisation for it, but I think writing in all lower-case is therapeutic because it liberates you from the chore of deciding so you can focus on the content you deliver. Ironically, this sensibility I think was borne from the internet era, where it is considered bad form to write in all upper-case, especially in code. Danvy’s words come to mind: “We should use our caps lock key for coding, not for shouting.”
The rigid formalism of writing in regular language should be reserved for books, essays (such as this one), articles and prose — and even then it can be broken to some great effect, like in Hubert Selby Jr’s Last Exit to Brooklyn, where according to an article in The Telegraph, he “ignored the rules of grammar, such as the use of punctuation and quotation marks”, and that created “visceral, rhythmic power”. To read more, here’s a charming short article on the novel, which is probably one of the most impactful reads I’ve had.
This brings us to our next idea: the point of contrast, and how it ties in with writing poetry in all lower-case.
Two key elements of what tends to constitutes poetry comes to mind: the use of contrast / juxtaposition for effect, and the sparseness / economic use of language. In an essay or prose, we have the ability to expound our thoughts (and of course, add numerous notes in brackets) and we are expected to communicate clearly and effectively — we learn of course that capitalising at the start of sentences is key, and we should get to the point, quick, early, often. This makes for the smooth concise and informational read: not at all verbose and flowery.
But in poetry, the lines get muddled; we meander in an open world environment, so to speak — it becomes conversational. At the same time, we are expected to mediate and remove figures of speech and footnotes (such as so to speak, unless used for effect) as much as we can, moving away from platitudes and moving towards novel ways of seeing.
Defaulting to writing poetry in all-smalls allows us then to have a greater contrast and impact — capitalisation doesn’t come routinely, but instead is a choice that is rhythmic — in essence, it becomes another scalpel in a surgical toolkit that allows us to build tension and highlight our choices about WHAT TO CAPITALISE for effect.
So why critique it as the cornerstone of “art kids” and associate it with bad poetry? The question of aesthetics and page poetry is not a new one: now it has become the new aesthetic, it is in vogue. Instagram Poets like Rupi Kaur write in all-smalls. So do celebrated poets like E.E Cummings. But so do people Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself wouldn’t do worse in mostly lower case, arguably. But both Milton’s Paradise Lost, which stretches for over 10000 lines of blank verse, and haiku share status as “good poetry”.
蝸牛
そろそろ登れ
富士の山
O snail,
Climb Mt. Fuji,
But slowly, slowly!
– Kobayashi Issa, Climb Mt. Fuji
All smalls is no more or less an indicator of good or bad poetry than length.
The main point: In poetry, choices of form are equally a part of content as choices of images or diction. It does bring attention to your content if you make the choice about which letters to capitalise. Depth over breadth, everyone.
Anyway, thank you for coming to my TED talk.