I ditched the initial capitals three years ago. It is no longer a persuasive convention, and I find it somewhat stilted. When everybody used them, I didn't notice them. Now that I'm spoiled to not seeing them, they irk me.
Years ago women wore hats and gloves to luncheons, teas, church, and in the military community, to changes of command. Eventually the convention gave way, and we all stopped wearing them to luncheons, teas, and church. I was glad, because I looked like Minnie Pearl or Ruth Buzzy in them. I got down to one hat, my "change of command" hat. I can remember the feeling of freedom I experienced the first time I decided not to wear it and lightening didn't strike me dead. I was the only woman there without a hat, but since my husband was CO, I was in the unique position of being able to please myself. On his outbound C of C, nobody wore a hat. Conventions change.
The point is, unless there is a logical purpose for it, a convention is just a convention. Somebody started it and somebody can change it. Everybody has to decide his own comfort level.
I am a stickler for punctuation and grammar, because clarity depends on them. But initial line capitals are an imposed convention that in contemporary poetry we must make allowances for and read around. They impede communication in the way Ginger just described, forcing the reader to go back and start again. Contemporary poetry uses a lot of enjambment. Initial capitals date back to a time when thoughts and phrases were contained in the line. The more enjambment we use, the less sense it makes to throw stumbling blocks to that enjambment in the readers' path.
Carol
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