Although the words are the same, the artistic manner in which they are written—with line breaks, uncapitalized words, and no punctuation—creates a distinct mood. You're attempting to make use of it. The title's words are not capitalized, nor is the pronoun "I." This makes the poetry seem more informal and conversational. Words that begin sentences but don't have specific meanings, such as "why," are called "adjectives." They can be used without changing their meaning, so they're generally left uncapitalized.
Words that identify a person or thing are called "pronouns." They can only be used once in a given context, so they must be specified whenever they appear.
Adverbs describe other words and phrases and can also be left out of a poem because they can be inferred from the surrounding text. For example, if a poet writes "quietly" as an adverb next to a word like "noise," the reader knows that the poet means for them to be quiet compared to the noise.
Prepositions are words like "to," "in," and "at" that connect nouns or pronouns with other parts of speech. A preposition is always capitalized when it stands on its own as part of a word (such as "a book to read") but usually isn't when it follows another word that already indicates a particular object (such as "read a book").
Poets' Guidelines Capitalization rules are also respected. Every sentence's initial word, as well as the pronoun I, is capitalized. Traditionally, the initial word of each line of poetry is capitalized as well. "To be or not to be" and "A rose by any other name..." would be presented in all-capital letters.
However, modern poets may choose otherwise if they want to express themselves freely. "To be or not to be," for example, could be presented in lowercase letters to make it seem like a question. Or a poet might choose to write everything in lowercase to create an illusion that what they're writing is actually speech.
Overall, capitalization is mostly important for recognition purposes.
Because it is the only single-letter pronoun, the letter I is nevertheless capitalized. Because the pronouns "I" and "me" have different meanings, capitalization rules distinguish between the two. Capitalizing the first word of a sentence makes that statement sound more formal or important.
Other common words that begin sentences but do not appear in the dictionary include: "the", "and", "but", and "even". Beginning sentences with these words helps to connect ideas within the sentence and gives the reader context. These un-dictionaryable words are called "starter words" because they start sentences and don't seem to belong there.
Starter words can be divided into four categories based on how they affect the beginning of a sentence: (1) exclusive starter words cannot be used with other starters; (2) inclusive starter words can be used with others; (3) mandatory starter words must be used in every sentence; and (4) optional starter words may be used or not used depending on the writer's preference.
This lesson focuses on exclusive and inclusive starter words. Other types of starter words are discussed in detail in our other lessons: mandatory starter words, example sentences using mandatory and exclusive/inclusive starters, and optional starter words.
When Quoting Three or Fewer Lines of Poetry (1.3. Capitalize anything that is capitalized in the original poem. 2.4. Do not capitalize common words unless they are important to understanding the poem.) Answer: No, only capital letters are significant in poetry.
Because there are no rules in poetry, the answer is "no." The fact that the initial words of each line of a poem are normally capitalized is only a convention! It is possible to write poems in all lower case if you wish.
Many poets choose to follow this convention because it helps them focus attention on each line of the poem. Some people think that only the first word of each line needs to be capitalized, but since most poems use complete sentences, this isn't necessary either.
The only requirement for any line of poetry is that it must be able to stand by itself as a sentence. This means that unless the rest of the poem requires it, other than for poetic effect, capital letters don't have to appear at the start of every line.
In fact, using capital letters in this way might even be considered old-fashioned or formal.
It is up to the poet how they want to arrange their words on the page. There are many different ways of writing poems, both modern and traditional, so no single correct method exists. For example, some writers prefer to start each line with a capital letter, while others like to begin with an unadorned word. Either method can be effective depending on the message the poet wants to send through their work.
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