Semicolon

Who thought punctuation could be the source of such passion? I wrote my review in the form of an ode, distilling centuries of debate into 32 lines. 

This is a book for the poets and purists

The teachers and preachers and self-proclaimed jurists

The parsers and purveyors of 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘴 and of 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘴

The writers and editors and loud grammar bitches

The guardians and lovers of all things linguistic

The lapsers and committers of sins solecistic

The seers and savants and experts semantic

The go-with-the-flow and the proudly pedantic

I’m talking to you, the grammar curmudgeon

Whose rules are a weapon with which others to bludgeon

People defend and detract with such passion

Though grammar has often been subject to fashion

Just ask the parenthesis and unfortunate colon

Whose time in the spotlight was summarily stolen

By--you guessed it--the upstart, the comma and dot

The mark over which so many have fought

The semicolon was once considered quite trendy

With the tail sometimes straight, and sometimes more bendy

But fashion is fleeting, only style does stay

Said Coco Chanel in her very French way

Punctuation gives language its style and meaning

Perhaps that is what we all should be gleaning

The pause of a comma, or sudden full stop.

The drama of dashes––or exclamations that pop!

The three dots of omission, or to signal suspense . . .

In situations uncertain or unbearably tense

And the semicolon, of course, that multifaceted mark

Elegant, graceful, undeserving of snark

For all those enamored of things punctuation

This is a book to take on vacation

I hope you don’t mind that I wrote in this mode

And present my review in the form of an ode.